BY THE VILLAGE SUN | Part of East River Park that was bulldozed for the East Side Coastal Resiliency project — two ball fields at Delancey Street — was quietly reopened over Labor Day weekend. A spiffy new suspension bridge over the F.D.R. Driveway there was also opened.
A formal opening event for this completed work will be held Tues., Sept. 10, at 10 a.m., with Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue, Department of Design and Construction Commissioner Thomas Foley and Councilmember Carlina Rivera. After gathering at the western side of the bridge, at Delancey and Mangin Streets, Joshi will lead a procession over the new span to the new ball fields for an opening ceremony and ribbon-cutting.
D.D.C. spokesperson Ian Michaels said this part of the E.S.C.R. megaproject has been completed on time.
“We said we’d open these ball fields plus the Delancey Street bridge by September for Little League season and they opened Sept. 2,” he said.
The new suspension-style footbridge, which cost $32 million and was built in Italy, is larger than the previous, well, more pedestrian one that it replaces. It was assembled at the site and installed across the highway in June.
The bridge attaches to squiggly-shaped ramps on its west side and east sides. The green fencing on the ramps is just temporary and will come off in January, Michaels said.
Unlike East River Park’s southern end, which was clear-cut for the resiliency project, the park’s northern end and its beautiful, 80-year-old London plane trees still have not been leveled as part of the contentious two-phase project.
The pair of ball fields and bridge are the first parts of the park to reopen following the southern section’s closure for E.S.C.R., the $1.45 billion project that’s creating a 2.4-mile-long flood barrier along the Lower East Side. East River Park’s southern half was closed nearly three years ago in December 2021. Since then the area under the ball fields has been elevated by 8 feet to 10 feet above a new floodwall, and new artificial-turf fields have been installed with lighting.
Retired judge Kathryn Freed, a big E.S.C.R. critic who lives nearby on Grand Street, mostly scoffed at the newly redone park section.
“I think ‘park’ is a misnomer,” she shrugged of the ball fields and surrounding area. “You assume when you have green space it’s a park. There’s astroturf — artificial turf.”
Freed, who was also formerly a city councilmember, was dismissive of the ramps on either side of the new bridge, calling the western one a “deathtrap” since it ends right near a parking lot entrance. Cyclists will also use the bridge, and Freed said she fears they could crash into cars that come “shooting out” of the parking lot. Also the concrete-walled ramp has no drainage, she noted.
“The Incas did it better,” she said. “The Incas put in gutters. They knew how to build.”
As for the bridge itself, she begrudgingly granted that it’s “cute.”
“Lots of cities have bridges that size,” she said. “It’s fine.”
“However, once you get out to the ball field, what the hell?” she said. “There’s no shade. Of course not — they cut down all the trees. They are supposed to be putting up trees around the edge. But they’re going to be saplings. … Before, a lot of it was artificial turf, but it also had trees and grass. There was a lot of green stuff and it had shade.”
In addition, Freed said she was concerned that the sports turf contains “forever chemicals” called PFA’s, or perfluoroalkyls, man-made substances used in nonstick cookware that don’t break down easily in nature.
“Why are they even using artificial turf?” she asked. “They’re supposed to stop using it in 2025.”
Freed is worried Little Leaguers could suffer “heatstroke” on the new playing fields without even any nearby trees to offer shade.
“Artificial turf is very, very hot,” she stressed.”It reflects heat back.”
In fact, in September 2022, members of East River Park ACTION, while taking heat readings in East River Park during full sun, measured an astonishing temperature of 157 degrees at the artificial turf area inside the E. Sixth Street running track. Meanwhile, the artificial turf at the nearby Corlears Hook Park playing field was almost as blistering hot, registering 145 degrees.
All the E.S.C.R. work is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026. The city plans to do simultaneous ribbon-cuttings on the same date for the rebuilt East River Park and the completed Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resiliency, or B.M.C.R., project just to the south of it, where new flip-up barriers and floodwalls are currently being installed for flood project in the Two Bridges area between Montgomery Street and the Brooklyn Bridge.
I’m not going anywhere near there. As is well known, even by Ms. Rivera and her backers, the dust from artificial turf is carcinogenic, and spreads beyond the fields.
The grand opening with public officials has been switched to 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Please show up to let the city and Councilmember Rivera know what you think and what you would like to see happen. Bring an umbrella because there is no shade.
How can this be remedied? We need the trees, why did they forget to include trees?
She’s right. Let’s do it right the next time.
I don’t think DDC or NYC Parks even remember what a city “park” is supposed to be anymore. Someone called the new East River Park a “sports complex.” That would be more accurate, as it’s just a bunch of vehicle-wide unshaded concrete paths and vast artificial turf fields that I guess eventually will be dotted with a few saplings (most of which will no doubt die without dedicated care during their vulnerable first few years) and little “nature exploration areas” for greenwashing decoration. I could smell the plastic, even over the smell of FDR car pollution, as I walked up the ramp (which I don’t plan to do more than once, due to sunburn and thirst!). No Olmsted or anyone with a sense of beauty or nature working at these agencies, that’s for sure!