Wait, wait, there is a Value Engineering Study. That’s the report the de Blasio administration cited in 2018 when they announced a change in the flood control plan for East River Park that would double the cost and bury the entire park in eight feet of fill. Yet when we submitted a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)…
Recipes to mince and chop East River Park to cook up a very big expensive artificial environment. How can we make change happen?Please donate to our legal fund We can push for transparent external review and the flood control we need; not the city’s destructive, massive, expensive, and inadequate plan.
The Grand Street Democrats passed a resolution Jan. 27 decrying the destruction of East River Park despite the recently discovered lack of a Value Engineering report or study. Such a document is needed for large complicated projects such as the East Side Coastal Resiliency flood control plan. The Grand Street Dems are building a new…
Hello Ruthless Closing Plan for East River Park The city promised it would leave 40 percent of the park open throughout construction. Here is their draft map for the 60 percent they will fence off in November. The rust-colored sections on the map will be closed and under construction for two years minimum. The recently…
How to Make a terrible situation far worse by Harriet Hirshorn, Lower East Side I’ve been thinking about the terrible timing of shutting down 60 percent of East River Park in September when schools will be open for in room classes only 1-3 times a week. I’m reading articles in the New York Times about…
City officials and Community Board 3 claim they are working with the community on the $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR). In fact, they are engaging in a ‘conspiracy of silence’ about the massive park-topped flood wall has becomes less transparent to community partners all the time: • no town hall by electeds in…
(after Marianne Moore’s “The Camperdown Elm”) by Marcella Durand Dear Mayor Bill de Blasio, I choose as my treean oak that standssomewhat alonein a triangular lawn-like spacefacing the East Riverin East River Park,which is slatedto be demolishedthis coming Septemberper your opaque and confusingplans to, at some point,protect the Lower East Sidefrom floodingduring superstorms. The oak…
Wrecking East River Park can wait, but the Lower East Side and East Village need storm surge barriers for the hurricane season coming up. The East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) plan that would demolish East River Park is likely to be delayed. “In New York City, which was crippled in 2012 by Hurricane Sandy, the…
Sarah A, an East River Park advocate writes, “The park’s been a tremendous source of comfort and relief to everyone during this pandemic. We go there daily and see many people from all walks of life using it and enjoying the spring beauty now erupting in the flowers and trees. It’s truly become a place…
How to stop the city from demolishing East River Park with an environmentally disastrous, climate damaging flood control project that is needed, paradoxically, because of climate change. East River Park ACTION and 15 other community groups along with some 75 individuals filed suit Feb. 6 to force the city to pursue Alienation from the state….
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