Back to the Future for Duane Park? Historic Footprint May Be Restored

Detail from an engraving, made between 1870 and 1887, shows the original dimensions of Duane Park, with its wraparound sidewalk planted with trees. The New-York Historical Society via The Tribeca Trib

Duane Park may be headed for a newer look, more than two centuries old.

Friends of Duane Park [1], the community group that oversees the Tribeca green space at Duane and Hudson Streets, is looking to expand the park to its 1797 dimensions, the year the city bought the parcel from Trinity Church. In the early 1800s, the little triangle, the city’s second oldest park, was greened, fenced and given a tree-lined perimeter sidewalk. But the city reduced that footprint in a 1940 remaking of the park, and took off a bigger chunk in 1954, when the neighborhood was a booming butter-and-egg and warehousing district. Truckers apparently needed the extra space to maneuver. 

“[They] lopped off the western nose, cut back the sidewalk and put back in its place a high curb to protect the fence and park from trucks,” Signe Nielsen, the landscape architect (and Duane Street resident) in charge of the design change, told Community Board 1's Waterfront, Parks and Cultural Committee this month. 

Nielsen was the architect behind a major redesign of the park, completed in 1998, that brought back much of the lost green space, and created the wavy path that evokes Calvert Vaux’s 1886 design. But the park’s diminished footprint remained the same. The new proposal, which needs the sign-off of several city agencies including the Landmarks Preservation Commission, would put back the southern sidewalk and extend the western “nose,” with a 10th tree added to replace one that was lost decades ago.

A “wall” of shrubs on the park’s south side would be cut down. “It blocked your view of the south because of all the trucks,” said Nielsen, who designed it that way in the 1990s, when trucks still lined Duane Street. With the trucks long gone, she added,  “we of course would want to open that up so that the view into the park from the south is much more hospitable.”

“We want to be true to the history,” said Karie Parker Davidson, president of the Friends group, who presented the proposal with Nielsen to Community Board 1’s Waterfront, Parks and Cultural Committee.

But more than history is behind the initiative. Last year the city proposed to expand its Citi Bike stations to include one on the south side of Duane Park. Parker Davidson said that could mean that the bike station would be up against the curb and fence, which in turn would cause garbage pickup, tree pruning and other issues.

In any case, Parker Davidson said, the little green space “is a gem of a park. And we think it’s worthy of protection as a piece of unique history.”

Parker Davidson said she is confident her group can contribute half of the estimated $350,000 to $400,000 cost of construction, with hoped-for additional funding coming from elected officials. Community Board 1 voted its support for the project and Parker Davidson said the concept of the plan is supported by both the city’s Department of Transportation and Department of Parks and Recreation.

“DOT looks forward to reviewing the proposal and discussing it with Parks,” a spokesman for the transportation agency said in an email. A Parks Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.