Archinect - News

Heatherwick's $260 million elevated river park 'Little Island' opens in NYC

2021-05-20T14:01:00-04:00

Rising from the Hudson River, Little Island preens atop a bouquet of tulip-shaped columns, begging to be posted on Instagram. Outside, it’s eye candy. Inside, a charmer, with killer views.

NYT critic Michael Kimmelman reviews the anticipated elevated river park Little Island (formerly known as Pier 55) which opens on Manhattan's Hudson River bank this week.

Designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Signe Nielsen of NY-based landscape architecture firm MNLA, the $260 million parcel resting on a forest of tulip-shaped concrete pillars had a rocky start and was pronounced dead at some point during years of legal controversy. The now completed attraction impresses with urban green space, river vistas, several new event venues and summer programming atop an engineering feat realized by Arup.

Photo: Michael Grimm.

"I’ve become a Heatherwick skeptic lately, but his contribution here is in the theatrical vein of 18th century English garden follies," Kimmelman writes, adding, "not least because Little Island can remind you more of a private estate than a city park. It’s clearly going to cost a king’s ransom to maintain, a burden the Hudson River Park Trust (which is to say the public...

Aaaand it's back: Heatherwick's Pier 55 happening after all

2017-10-26T13:03:00-04:00

Pier 55, the elaborate $250 million performing arts center on an undulating pier in the Hudson River, is back from the dead. Forty-three days ago, Barry Diller, the entertainment mogul behind the plan, pulled the plug on the project [...] Now, in an agreement brokered by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Mr. Diller agreed to revive the project, known as “Diller Island,” and opponents who had filed a series of lawsuits to stop the plan agreed to drop their legal battle.

In never-ending-money-and-politics-tale news: "Diller Island," the controversial Pier 55 park structure floating in New York's Hudson River, isn't so dead after all after reports of a Governor Cuomo-brokered agreement between billionaire financier Barry Diller and opponents surfaced yesterday.

"In return, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has promised to complete the 4.5-mile-long Hudson River Park," the New York Times writes, "which stretches along the waterfront from Battery Park City to 59th Street and includes Pier 55 at the foot of 14th Street — and to protect the marine estuary from development."

We're holding our breath.

Another Heatherwick project dead, this time New York's Pier 55

2017-09-15T14:47:00-04:00

After years of toe-to-toe battling with a small band of critics and a fellow billionaire, Barry Diller said Wednesday that he was pulling the plug on his family’s commitment to build and operate a $250 million performance center on an undulating pier 186 feet off the Hudson River shoreline.

Back in August, plans for the controversial Thomas Heatherwick-designed Garden Bridge, a pet project of former conservative London mayor Boris Johnson, was scrapped due to the Trust's inability to raise private funds in the absence of public funding. Now, another one of Heatherwick's proposed plans, Pier 55, is getting the boot as well. The project was the vision of American media company IAC chair, Barry Diller. Blueprints for the elevated island park in the Hudson River off Manhattan included a performance venue, an outdoor theater, and a gathering space.

Mr. Diller cited the escalating costs of the project along with the continuing controversy surrounding it as the reasons for the drop. When first proposed, the park was to cost $35 million, but that number eventually increased to over $250 due to legal delays as well as the design's growing complexity. Supporters of the project included the local community board, Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Senator Chuck Schumer. On ...

Judge once again stops work at Pier 55 over environmental concerns

2017-03-24T15:14:00-04:00

Judge Lorna G. Schofield agreed with the group’s claim that the Army Corps of Engineers had not conducted a sufficient environmental review on how the 2.4-acre park would affect fish and wildlife. She ordered that work stop at the site and called for a review of alternatives for building along Hudson River Park, a maritime sanctuary.

It's been nearly two years since the City Club of New York first slapped Pier 55, Barry Diller's $200 million offshore park, with a lawsuit. And despite construction starting over the summer, a judge has once again ordered work to stop at the site.

Looking at all sides of the Pier 55 offshore park development

2015-04-09T20:47:00-04:00

For fans of the park, the gift from the Diller-von Furstenberg foundation represented more than the revival of Pier 54. It was a statement that Hudson River Park deserved to be in the same league as the city’s other signature, showy spaces.

More details -- or opinions, perhaps -- are surfacing for the proposed Pier 55 "culture island", which media mogul Barry Diller commissioned Thomas Heatherwick to design for New York's Hudson River Park. Since the plan was first publicly announced back in November, followed by a lease agreement approved in February, plans to make the $130 million development a reality appear to gradually be moving forward.

Previously

Barry Diller Pledges $130M for Futuristic Offshore Park on the West Side

2014-11-17T13:27:00-05:00

After being approached over two years ago about the idea, Barry Diller initiated a design competition, ultimately selecting British architect Thomas Heatherwick of Heatherwick Studio, famous for designing the Olympic caldron for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Landscape architect Mathews Nielsen will also lend his hand. Some critics of the idea are not happy about the secretive planning and how private funds will be used to construct a public park.

Billionaire media mogul, and largest private donor to the High Line, Barry Diller has pledged $130 million of the $170 million total to build a floating park and performance venue known as Pier 55 off 14th Street in the Meatpacking District. The 2.7-acre park will be located 186 feet off land, and contain wooded nooks and three performance venues, including an amphitheater. It will be an undulating platform set atop 300 mushroom-shaped concrete columns that will range in height from 70 feet to 15 feet above the water.