'Optimism Abounds!' BPC Residents Celebrate Monument Delay

What had been planned as a protest against a proposed Essential Workers Monument near the Irish Hunger Memorial became a celebration following news of a delay. Photo: Office of State Senator Brian Kavanagh

Battery Park City residents and elected officials opposing the installation of an Essential Workers Monument in the neighborhood celebrated a hard-fought delay on Monday. 

In a statement, Authority Chairman George Tsunis said Labor Day is no longer the deadline for completion of the monument. Tsunis said the authority still intends to place the monument in the neighborhood, on a site to be determined by an expanded advisory committee “comprised of local stakeholders, essential workers representatives, and others”  to review the options. 

There will be recognition of essential workers in Battery Park City on Labor Day, Tsunis said, without elaborating. He noted that “potential litigation by residents would further delay the process.” 

In a tweet, Community Board 1 responded, “Thank you @NYGovCuomo and Chair Tsunis of the @bpca_ny for hearing us. We look forward to hearing more about the Advisory Committee. Optimism abounds!”

The decision came after Tsunis and other Battery Park City Authority officials got an earful for more than four hours at a Community Board 1 Battery Park City Committee meeting on July 7 as residents sounded off on new options presented for the Essential Workers Monument, and Gov. Cuomo’s Labor Day deadline. 

The sit-down followed protests [1] on June 28 that prevented the bulldozing of a section of Rockefeller Park for the monument. The Authority soon agreed [2] to find another location for it.

One of the two options called for the monument to occupy 8,000 square feet on what is now the rectangular lawn area between the Irish Hunger Memorial and 300 Vesey Street. Much like the scrapped project for Rockefeller Park, it featured 20 trees representing the various essential workforces, flag poles, an enclosed “eternal flame,” and benches. Stanchions with the engraved names of the different categories of essential workers were also part of the design. Another option included many of the same elements, but on the volleyball court on Esplanade Plaza, south of the North Cove.

At the hybrid meeting, the committee and BPCA representatives heard one resident after another slam the proposal, and the rush to complete it. 

“These current designs are not designs,” Laura Starr, a landscape architect and CB1 member, said of the renderings shown by the Authority. “They’re not going to work, they’re not in character, and they’re going to wreck the landscape of Battery Park City.”

No landscape architect was credited with the design, which was drawn up by a state agency, the Office of General Services. A commission of 19 union leaders convened by Cuomo signed off on the designs and the choice of sites, according to the governor’s office. Three other state-owned locations—Denny Farrell State Park, Roberto Clemente State Park, and Roosevelt Island—were considered and rejected, the Authority said.

Many questioned the “rush” to complete the monument by Labor Day.

“When were these alternate sites that you’re showing us designed?” Alice Blank, an architect and the CB1 vice chair, asked Tsunis.

“Within the past week,” he replied.

Declaring herself “amazed and appalled” by the hurried process, Blank, like others, called for a delay, “allowing the community and the design world to really engage. This is not a small project and it should be done well.”

“What we’re looking for is a compromise to get more time, to have a dialogue, to have a more open process,” CB1 Chair Tammy Meltzer said.