Picture It. BPC's Latest Landscape-Transforming Flood Barrier Plans.

BATTERY PARK CITY

Rendering shows planners' concept for adding flood-protecting elements near the volleyball court in Battery Park City. Credit: Turner, Kruz, Arcadis, Scape, BIG, and WSP

From Tribeca to South Cove, consultants show how they would protect neighborhoods by changing them.

CARL GLASSMAN

Posted

Dec. 21, 2023

The team of consultants working on the mammoth North/West Battery Park City Resiliency Project [1] recently presented their latest plans, having passed what they call the “30% milestone” and are now working on a more detailed 60% stage of design completion. This presentation, which took place at Stuyvesant Hight School on Nov. 30, was the latest in a series of meetings meant to elicit feedback from the public. The roughly three-year construction project is expected to begin sometime in 2025.

Below is a selection of images shown at the meeting, with comments from the lead presenter, Peter Glus of Arcadis. Go here [2] for a video of the full presentation and here [3] to see all of the images. Presentation images are by the firms Turner, Kruz, Arcadis, Scape, BIG, and WSP.

GREENWICH STREET AND NORTH MOORE STREET

Peter Glus said the barrier elements will “hug” the 80 North Moore Street building of Independence Plaza as well as the parking lot fence outside Borough of Manhattan Community College “so they can match the current built environment…and create the least minimal impact” to the public. The barriers, yet to be designed, will have “architectural elements” on them, Glus said.

WEST STREET

An earlier plan to place barriers adjacent to the Greenway, on the west side of West Street, was heavily criticized. In a major revision, the designers are now putting the protection next to BMCC, on the east side of West Street. It will cross West Street, roughly opposite Stuyvesant High School.

OUTSIDE STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL

The esplanade in this area is a platform deck suspended above water. “So for us to modify that deck, we would have to take the whole deck off and reconstruct it because the deck wasn't designed to handle the project elements that were proposed,” Glus said. To avoid that, the plan calls for building a 6-foot extension above the water that would become the barrier wall at the water’s edge. Other barrier elements are adjacent to the school. “On the south side of the curved path we’re looking to plant a line of trees,” Glus said. “Because we recognize that this area right now has green, we want to replace it with green and try to improve on that.”

ROCKEFELLER PARK

The image below illustrates how the designers want to follow the present-day wall that goes along River Terrace “because we’re trying to match the existing built environments to minimize the change that the project is creating,” Glus said. As shown, the project elements run along the east side of the playground.

LILY POND AND FERRY TERMINAL AREA

Earlier plans called for moving the ferry terminal and possibly eliminating the popular lily pond (aka duck pond). Both drew much criticism so they are currently expected to remain in place. The barriers will go on the east side of the lily pond, hidden within plantings. “This is an area where people [will experience] the green and the plantings, and not the wall,” Glus said. In the area outside the ferry terminal, “We’ve put a lot of thought into trying to create green here because this area was not particularly green in its existing configuration.”

NORTH COVE

“We’re trying to put our project elements on the high side of the esplanade to minimize their impact and to blend in with the upper uses of the esplanade,” Glus said. The project here is meant to be viewed as seating, not flood protection. “We worked really hard to keep that top of the wall such that you can be sitting on one of those tables [on the plaza] and you can still see the water.”

PUMPHOUSE PARK

Glus said that the job of creating a flood barrier system in the area of Pumphouse Park “is one of the most difficult parts of the project because engineers must figure out how to build it and straddle the PATH tube that goes underneath it. We don’t have a lot of liberty to move it because we have to be on top of the PATH tube.” A critical piece of infrastructure that prevents the PATH tube from flooding during a surge event (as it did during Hurricane Sandy) is also underground in that location.The designers are trying to create as much green as they can, he said, “but 14 or 15 trees are going to be impacted by this project because this [barrier] alignment is where it is and that [infrastructure] below grade has to be where it is.”

VOLLEYBALL COURT

Around the court, some flood barriers would double as seating and plantings would be added.

SOUTH ESPLANADE

As shown in these renderings along the esplanade, the flood wall would be designed to match the height and alignment of the privacy wall of the residential buildings. A curved pathway is meant for pedestrians and as a deterrent to bikes and scooters.

The designers are looking to create particular uses for the ends of three streets that incorporate flood barriers. One is called “nature play,” at West Thames, another is “conversation room,” at Rector Place, and the third is “leisure lawn” at the end of Albany Street. Shown is the concept for Rector Place.

SOUTH COVE

The proposed barrier alignment along the South Cove is shown in the diagram below. “We have very deliberately tried to move away from the grove so that we minimize impact on those trees,” Glus said.