On Saturday, a crowd — estimated between 300 and 500 community members — gathered in Tompkins Square Park for a march and rally to protest the city's plan to bury East River Park with eight feet of landfill starting this March as part of protecting the east side against future storms and rising seas.
East River Park Action organized the rally.
"We support a plan that will provide much-needed flood protection," Howard Brandstein, director of the Sixth Street Community Center and a rally organizer, said in statement beforehand. "At the same time it should expand the park and reduce greenhouse emissions in response to the climate crisis."
EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared photos from the event starting in Tompkins Square Park...
Reverend Billy was on hand to lead the parade...
The group moved on toward East River Park...
... crossing over the FDR at Sixth Street...
Speakers on Saturday included Adam Zhou (pictured below), the East Village resident who successfully challenged the city's plan to put down a synthetic turf on the ball fields in Tompkins Square Park...
In keeping with the cries of "Bury the plan, not the park," the rally concluded with a burial of the city's current stormproofing plan... EVG reader Brucie took these two photos...
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The East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR) is a coastal protection initiative jointly funded by the city and the federal government aimed at reducing flood risk due to coastal storms and sea-level rise. ESCR is the first element of the city’s "Big U" plan to protect Lower Manhattan from surges like those seen during Superstorm Sandy.
As part of the project, city officials, starting next spring, plan to close East River Park for three-plus years, elevating it with 8- to 10-feet of soil and chopping down trees, etc., from Montgomery Street to East 13th Street.
City officials have said that this is a better course of action compared to the previous plan that was in the works with community input before Mayor de Blasio's team changed course last fall. Among other things, city officials claim that the new plan will shave nearly six months off of the projected timeline and will be less disruptive for residents living in the area.
The project is now undergoing a third-party review by a Dutch consultant hired by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and local City Councilmember Carlina Rivera. (The review is expected to be delivered soon.)
The City Planning Commission will vote on the plan today (Sept. 23) in the next step of the public review process before it heads to City Council later this fall. (The meeting is at 1 p.m. in the Lower Concourse, 120 Broadway. Find the meeting agenda at this link.)
Updated 6 p.m.
As expected, the Planning Commission approved the plan. Find a recap at Patch.
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On the way to East River Park, the group stopped by Rivera's office on Fourth Street...
[Photo by Dave on 7th]
There, the group sang a modified version of Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecilia" — "Carlina, you’re breaking our hearts, don’t bury the park [baby]."
According to Patch, Rivera has advocated "for staged construction to avoid a full park closure but has not outright opposed the plan." She holds a key vote when the plan comes before City Council this fall.
Flyers posted around the neighborhood have called out Rivera ... and urged residents to contact her office about the plan...
14 comments:
It's surprising how many people who use the park regularly have no idea that this is happening. Many people at the park who asked what the march was about were shocked to hear the park could be closed for 3+ years. Hopefully this encourages more people to do the research and get involved, even if it's to spend 5 minutes on phone calls to the city reps.
The fact that we didn’t block traffic when we crossed the FDR drive was a lost opportunity: maintaining the FDR at its existing condition is all what this plan is about. Demonstrations matter only when roads are blocked.
I rail against ONE PARTY RULE because in the EV we have surrendered our votes to the Dem party in hopes that it will do the right thing for the community. But the Dems haven't. They have done the best for the party - and that means donors. In the West Village ONE PARTY RULE works better because the pols know they can't scam the voters. The voters are organized. Any attempt to harm their community is met with fierce opposition. In the last month after the protest about turfing the asphalt and now the East River park March... Maybe Ms. Ruin-the EV-Rivera will get the hint that she works for us... and does the right thing for her community not the Dem donors and votes against the current plan.
Very telling that Carlina couldn't actually make the time to be there and listen to her constituents. I guess she only works Monday - Friday.
I feel like a stupid fool in voting both for Riviera and DeBlassio. I am such a sucker. I thought they cared about communities within NYC, the very city they call home and work in. Considering she hasn't opposed it yet and outweighing how pathetic our joke of a mayor is, I am feeling powerless and sad about this entire situation. You can't tell me these political figures and officials aren't getting handouts and cash under the table. If this is executed, they should all be ashamed of themselves for their greed and corruption. If they were concerned about our neighborhood, they would have devised a better, more effective plan.
This new plan is the most blunt of instruments. It seems basically create a low-lying pool of stagnant water with nowhere to go, since it ignores the topography of the area.
This plan is basically a middle finger to the East Village and Lower East Side. Our health doesn't matter; our air doesn't matter; our access to green space doesn't matter; our kids' recreation needs don't matter; our unique community doesn't matter. But even worse this plan will add to climate change by removing mature trees and greenery and completely the park's destroying ecosystem. I am beyond disappointed in our elected officials. They had the chance to do so much better by the EV and LES. We could have a decked-over FDR cutting emissions and adding green space. We could have had sustainable buffering wetlands that would have supported bird migrations and offered lasting storm protection. Instead, we will have years, probably decades, of dust and construction noise for what's basically going to be a crummy wall masquerading as a "park." Can you imagine a similar proposal for Central Park?
Voting for Carlina made sense because she was fresh and promising. BDB second time? Didn’t make sense
Decked over FDR will not cut emissions, just vent them somewhere else. Tearing down the FDR and making it a city street instead of a passenger car only speed way will cut emissions
I imagine Councilwoman Rivera as well as the 10,000 NYCHA families who live along the park avoided this protest — of the usual 100 or so EV attention seekers — because they don’t support it.
The “Save The Park” marchers reject the city’s coastal resiliency plan in favor of a preliminary, “community-based” plan that would let the park flood and allegedly save some trees. However there were many objections to this initial, ”community” plan especially from the 10,000 families who live in NYCHA where some called the plan racist!
Those objections were discussed in dozens of community meetings and included:
1.) The community plan would deck the FDR on 3 sides and direct all that car exhaust towards the residents of NYCHA
2.) The decking would block the first 5 floors of NYCHA (Riis, Wald & Baruch houses)
3.) It would place the football fields, bleachers and stadium lights (and all that noise, and all of sport fields) on top of the FDR, directly outside the windows of NYCHA housing
4.) It would turn the playgrounds of children (mostly of color) into flood plains that would fill with environmental toxins each time they flooded
5.) Construction would close the FDR and take place directly outside NYCHA housing — whereas the new plan is able to build from barges on the river
6.) The old plan continued to let the park flood
7.) People should stop using the term “flood plain” in reference to the East River since a flood plain capable of accepting rising flood waters would need to extend to 1st Avenue
8.) Getting grass and tees to grow on a man made berm and decking over the FDR would be costly — and proved very difficult in Brooklyn Bridge Park where all the plantings & sod on the berm died
However what folks can all agree upon is that whatever plan moves forward, it should happen in phases so we don’t close the entire 58 acre park at once
Let us not forget this other De Blasio plan proposal for filling in the East River with a wide sea wall - land fill in the river - that conveniently accommodates waterfront luxury development.
.”The raison d’être was protection from climate change, but the project had much in common with the vogue for land reclamation that has swept across Asian coastal cities. In tight markets, it’s cheaper to build land than to buy it. In a subsequent study, consultants and city analysts determined that Seaport City was the best plan for New York in part because it would cost $3.6 billion—but generate $4.3 billion.”
So think about it—— destroy the park - take away open space, recreation and waterfront access for an entire generation of youth —- make noise and contaminated dust and drive low income people out of the area— run out of money with park and neighborhood held hostage as timeline for construction drags on —— city finds solution to complete by building luxury towers over a decked FDR or extension of land fill De Blasio has proposed ...... just conjecture.
https://slate.com/business/2019/03/why-new-york-is-expanding-into-the-east-river.html?fbclid=IwAR1avas6knurLfri0losdyymOzjdMkyLKb9TdFixTut3uhIc5dxjHSD5i08
Let's turn the FDR into a mass transit corrider for non-polluting electric buses or light rail that will also serve those living along the Drive!
Trees have to go because they can block the high-speed wireless signals that are proliferating around the world. See Claire Edwards and others, including "5G: When Progress Becomes a Death Sentence," by Michael Welch & Martin Pall, on Global Research.
The vast majority of NYCHA residents are in fact OPPOSED to the city’s plan. See https://indypendent.org/2019/08/fighting-for-their-park-les-residents-challenge-the-citys-climate-change-plans/ Continuing outreach efforts by East River Park Action, the umbrella group that organized the Save the Park rally, also bear out this opposition in the personal testimonies of the many tenants signing petitions and attending meetings. A previous writer’s characterization of the earlier plan as “preliminary…that would let the park flood and allegedly save some trees” is a transparent effort to discredit a community plan he disagrees with. Conveniently omitted is the fact that hundreds of community residents participated in a HUD-funded planning process with Rebuild By Design and other architects and designers for a period of over four years.
Also why is it assumed that if the FDR Drive is covered by a deck, car exhaust would be vented towards NYCHA? Ventilation shafts are typically engineered to direct emissions upwards. Better yet let us re-envision the FDR Drive as a mass transit corridor for quiet electric non-polluting buses or light rail. In this way we can actually begin to address the root cause of the climate crisis and climate-change induced flooding instead of pretending that a wall will save us. At the same time we can begin to ameliorate the high rates of asthma that afflict those living in close proximity to the Drive as a result of their breathing noxious fumes from cars.
It should be noted that the drawings in the Rebuild By Design plan do not reflect that decking would block the first five floors (which is a height of 50 ft.) of NYCHA developments along Avenue D. I do agree with the writer that football fields, bleachers and stadium lights may be inappropriate for the decked area given the proximity to NYCHA and other developments. Along with avoiding noise and bright lights, it might actually be appropriate in addressing climate change to expand the park with flower gardens, shrubs, lawns with real grass (not astro-turf) and trees. These amenities would more than offset the loss of any view resulting from decking and, I believe, would be far more preferable to the current unobstructed view of the 100,000+ cars traveling every day on the FDR Drive.
In the city’s current ‘preferred’ plan, the mature trees that mitigate emissions and heat from traffic would be entirely removed, and it will be many years before the replacement saplings will actually reduce the resulting health risks. Moreover, if the FDR becomes a Congestion Pricing Free Zone, traffic congestion and emissions will increase. Some residents will be unable to open their windows, and running air conditioners or filters will become costly, both economically and environmentally.
A previous raises the concern of flooding bringing toxins into the park were it to remain a flood plain, but fails to mention the contaminates that will be released into the air and water should the park be bulldozed. East River Park was developed on the site of a former industrial zone which was extensively contaminated with highly toxic chemicals. Former manufactured gas plants on the site left petroleum waste and gas production byproducts in the soil and groundwater, including coal tar, fuel, gasoline, and volatile organic compounds. The area also contains asbestos, lead-based paint, pesticides, herbicides, and heavy metals. High levels of these contaminants remain buried underneath the park. We should also ask how we can be certain that the mountains of landfill the city plans to dump on the bulldozed park will be free of toxic material. To date we do not know the source or content of this landfill.
Finally, I certainly do not agree to “phased construction” as it relates to the city’s plan because here phased construction simply means phased destruction, i.e. destroy the park and its biodiversity one section at a time instead of all at once. No way. This is a bad ugly plan no matter how you phase it.
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