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Manhattan’s first public beachfront opens at Gansevoort Peninsula, designed by Field Operations

2023-10-05T13:34:00-04:00

The 5.5-acre Gansevoort Peninsula has opened at Hudson River Park, the first public beachfront in Manhattan. The $73 million project was designed by Field Operations and includes a large sports field, boardwalks, promenades, lawns, a picnic area, and an ecological salt marsh.

Image credit: Barret Doherty

The southern edge of the park provides direct access to the Hudson River for non-motorized boats and views of both the river, the lower Manhattan skyline, and Day’s End, a monumental, site-specific sculpture by David Hammons. The adjacent beach holds 1,200 tons of sand with beach umbrellas, Adirondack-style chairs, and a misting feature for cooling down or rinsing off sand.

Image credit: Barret Doherty

A large picnic area with tables and benches overlooks the river, while a boardwalk with a Pine Grove draws people onto the site from the adjacent esplanade before connecting with the western esplanade where Manhattan’s Thirteenth Avenue was once located. Despite its waterside location, ...

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...

Gansevoort Peninsula Park: Manhattan's first public beach moves forward

2021-02-08T15:47:00-05:00

The Hudson River Park Trust is looking for developers to build its new Gansevoort Peninsula, a 5.5-acre park to be built on what was once 13th Avenue. [...] The Whitney Museum of American Art will also build one of the country’s largest public art projects on the southern edge of the peninsula featuring and installation called "Day’s End" by David Hammons.

According to Hudson River Park Trust planning documents, Manhattan's new $70 million Gansevoort Peninsula Park will include a "sandy beach area with kayak access on the south side, a lawn and seating area north of the beach, a large sports field, a salt marsh with habitat enhancements on the north side, a dog run and on its western side, picnic tables and lounge chairs."

Credit: James Corner Field Operations, courtesy of the Hudson River Park Trust.

"As Hudson River Park moves closer to completion, we are excited to be in position to start construction on one of our signature projects this coming spring," said Hudson River Park Trust President & CEO, Madelyn Wils.

Last fall, Pier 26 opened as Hudson River Park's first new public pier in a decade.

Credit: James Corner Field Operations, courtesy of the Hudson River Park Trust.

The James Corner Field Operations-designed Gansevoort Peninsula project is scheduled to open in spring 2023.

New Pier 26 opens at NYC's Hudson River Park

2020-10-01T14:34:00-04:00

Expanding a park usually means modifying an existing landscape. The designers of Pier 26 faced a far more daunting challenge: creating an entirely new one in the swift current of the Hudson River. [...] The latest addition to Hudson River Park, this 2.5-acre expanse is the city’s only public pier dedicated to river ecology.

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.

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.