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. — The New York Times

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. — The New York Times

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. — The New York Times

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. — 6sqft

[...] part architect, part furniture designer, part product designer, part researcher, part landscape architect, and part Pied Piper of design, and the things he comes up with manage somehow to be at once charming and brash.

[...] shares not only the Eameses’ determination to be wide-ranging but also their fascination with technology, their interest in communication, and, most important of all, their passionate belief in the meaning of actually making things and in using materials in new ways. — vanityfair.com

“The Garden Bridge is a land grab,” says Michael Ball of Thames Central Open Spaces. “That is, a major piece of public space and amenity – the South Bank, the River Thames, and the views across central London – would be sequestered for private interests, albeit cloaked in some appearance of charity and beneficence. When I saw Pier 55 I realised it was an even more blatant example of the same idea.” — The Guardian

[Mayor Sadiq Khan] has already begun scrutinising Boris Johnson’s decisions relating to the controversial project, to which £60m of public money has been allocated in circumstances previously criticised by parliamentary spending officials as unorthodox. [...]

The proposed bridge has secured vast sums of public money despite being initially promoted as entirely private-funded. It has recently been bedevilled by accusations that its designer was selected before the actual tender process began. — theguardian.com

Work will go ahead to construct an “elevated island park” in the Hudson River off Manhattan after a judge dismissed a lawsuit from environmental and civic advocates.

The $130m park, which has been given the go-ahead by the US Army’s Corps of Engineers, will be based on the Hudson River...

Judge Joan Lobis, who threw out the lawsuit, said: “A significant purpose of maintaining event spaces in the park is to generate funds for the ongoing upkeep of the park, which is surely a park purpose.” — Global Construction Review

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. — The New York Times