Starting Tuesday, the East 10th Street pedestrian bridge will close, along with the adjacent playground, BBQ area, and basketball courts — marking the next phase of park shutdowns tied to the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) Project.
In addition, the northern esplanade with access to Stuyvesant Cove Park (through 18th Street) will be shut down. Officials offered no alternative route. (Photos below by Robert Miner.)
Here's the community advisory on these closures ...
Field 6 will remain open until July 1... and by the end of the summer, the track located off of the Sixth Street pedestrian bridge will shut down, at which point the complete north end of East River Park will be shuttered. When this takes place, East Village-based park-goers must head south to access any East River Park amenities.
This PDF provides more background on the timing.
However, with the closures, several refurbished East River Park areas around the Williamsburg Bridge will reopen on Memorial Day, including the south tennis courts. 
The city has said it would maintain public access to at least 42% of the park throughout construction, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
The "phased work operations" in East River Park began in November 2021 in Project Area 1 between Montgomery Street and 15th Street. Workers have been burying the park under fill and cutting down hundreds of trees as part of the billion-dollar-plus ESCR. They are elevating the land 8 to 10 feet above sea level to protect the area from future storm surges.
29 comments:
"When this takes place, East Village-based park-goers must head south to access any East River Park amenities."
So a very limited section of the East river Park can be accessed via the 6th Street bridge or Houston Street. And eventually, sooner rather than later IMO, this whole section of the East River Park from just south of the Con Ed plant to the currently closed section about 1/2 mile north of the Williamsburg Bridge, will be closed for years.
Sigh.
This is such garbage
An intentionally mismanaged process. Follow the money.
Gotta get my old ass on those swings one last time this weekend.
And as always: FDR car traffic will not be affected. Killing us slowly every day
As the park shuts down never forget Carlina Rivera…
We just got Stuy Cove back. Now they're cutting off access again??
Only in/out thru the new delancey bridge? Am I seeing this right?
I’m really going to miss the track. I love the diverse mix of people that exercise together and play soccer there. I love the shady spots around it. The new part of the park is so bleached out and bright, it won’t be the same. It’s also going to be so hot. I don’t really have a point except to say I’m really missing the old EAst River park and its trees and nooks and crannies.
Thanks, Carlina!
I've noticed not only weight gain, but also increased depression without having a decent walkable section. I really hope we can access this part soon
my thoughts exactly
The map / graphic meant to explain what is opening is difficult to understand. There’s a north arrow (if you can call it that) orienting the map towards the east. The site is shown rotated. If the purpose is to use a graphic to communicate to the public, don’t reorient the entire site! Terrible. Typical of architects nowadays unfortunately.
The south part is pretty sad. Mostly concrete and artificial turf. No birds or wildlife. Going to take years (if not decades) for the new trees to provide any shade or absorb the pollution of the FDR. So much for nature.
I'm looking at the map and it looks like you still won't be able to get from the open park area to the Corlears Hook ferry. To get to the ferry, you still need to go to Grand St, then through the (mostly closed) Corlears Hook Park.
Been a poorly planned park for as long as I've been alive and I'm in my forties. My last memory of this park is when I was living on Clinton, hellish spring of 2020. My friends and I chilled out 10 feet or more apart in the summertime, double masked. We couldn't understand anything we were saying to each other. Nearby a big group of teenagers passed around a delicious looking blunt.
A terrible disregard of our community’s needs. We’re humans, we need outdoor space! Carlina Rivera helped do this.
So the track is closing just in time for school to start. Don't school teams need a track in downtown Manhattan?
Clearly, none of you were here during Sandy.
I was. Nothing even close to that has happened since. This is an overreaction.
More crimes against nature. And look, we're Atlantis by 2050 now anyway.
There was a petition going around earlier this year to include lights on the track rebuild…sad that wasn’t included in the plans to begin with
Y’all say follow the money. I think it’s worth it in this situation. If you have the time. Thanks in advance ^^
The old park had some wonderful landscaping, especially around the Williamsburg bridge area. I often biked back from further downtown back up to the east village in the evenings, and there were beautiful plants, grasses, and most of all: sounds of animals! Crickets! It was lovely. I feel it will take many years until the new sanitized park will feel lively that way. And let's not forget the loss 1000 mature trees!! ugh! it's really heartbreaking.
I don't agree with the other response here. Sandy-like events need to be defended against. What I have a real issue with is the decade plus of non action followed by a mad scramble to push through a plan that was presented as the only option. Was it really? They hid details because of the ConEd plant and then they said "it's this or nothing".
No other alternatives - no suggestion of adding more park space by building outward in the water... no real community engagement. The ONLY thing that was improved was that they're doing this in phases now instead of the whole park at once.
Temporary fix to a continuing problem, as the waters climb higher and higher. When everything melts, all of NYC except for bits of Washington Heights and Grimes Hill on Staten Island will be under the water. Good news: we'll all be dead by then, so...
the southern part of the park that was opened has already gone to hell. areas are overgrown with weeds crowding out the new plantings completely. this was so easily foreseeable. i don't understand why they planted crap that would require maintenance they clearly never intended to do! it is infuriating! one billion dollars, and it looks horrible.
compare all this to battery park. OR better yet, the beautiful new LIC/Hunters Point parks. how is it that that brand new area gets bigger, more mature trees? how is it that it isn't overwhelmed by giant swathes of cheap concrete? how is there are beautiful sitting areas and pergolas? i wonder what makes this area different? hmmmm.
"Anonymous said...
Clearly, none of you were here during Sandy. May 23, 2025 at 9:01 AM"
This type of misinformation post comes out whenever this is a discussion of the ESCR Project. There WAS a community approved project along the East River Park that did not entail destroying the Park to save it:
"After Hurricane Sandy raged through New York in 2012, Lower East Side/East Village residents and organizations worked for four years with officials to plan flood control. Flood walls and berms (long hills) would be built along the FDR Drive for storm surge protection. The park itself could be flooded during a hurricane. It would help absorb the overflowing waters and quickly recover (as it did during Sandy). It would cost about $770 million.
The plan was not perfect–and the city kept revising it until it became a bloated mess. However, there were the bones of excellent, attractive, community-responsive flood control plans. These trees survived Hurricane Sandy. They did not survive the city's plan for "resiliency." © Pat Arnow
These trees survived Hurricane Sandy. They did not survive the city’s plan for “resiliency.” By late 2018, the city suddenly decided the whole park should be erased to build a giant levee with a new park on top. They based their decision on a report they later insisted did not exist. Our Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request and appeals shook the report loose, but it was heavily redacted. The city grudgingly unredacted part of it, revealing many alternatives to the current plan in the Value Engineering Study."
https://eastriverparkaction.org/
I’m confused by the plan. Is the track being removed or just renovated?
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