NEW YORK | New East River access

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NYguy

http://www.observer.com/2010/real-es...rs-point-south

Seven Vie for Huge Queens Middle-Class Housing Complex



By Matt Chaban
September 23, 2010

Now that Hunters Point one awakens from its slumber, another look at the concepts. This one will probably go into highrise proposals once we get a developer.












http://www.nycedc.com/PressRoom/Pres...Images.aspx#22

[Obey]

Well these highrises have retail?

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Obey

Well these highrises have retail?

Yes.
http://www.nycedc.com/ProjectsOpport...ointSouth.aspx

• Video Link


Latest update on Hunters Point:
http://www.nycedc.com/ProjectsOpport...Sep_update.pdf

Work Projected for August 2010
• Completion of removal of concrete foundations
• Backfilling of open excavations
• Completion of installation of surcharge material
• Start of mobilization at SCA site

Work Projected for September 2010
• Surcharged material remains in place
• Continuation of SCA mobilization
• Preparatory work at site of IS/HS 404-Q

NYCEDC expects to begin releasing for bid contracts for the installation of infrastructure and construction of the riverfront park in the Fall of 2010.

A few more renderings.

[NYC4Life]

The current proposal looks so much better than the Olympic Village that was planned had NYC won the 2012 bid.

[yankeesfan1000]

This looks great, hopefully in 10 years or so this the Domino Sugar House developments, and the other residential projects around the Queensboro Bridge will be done or at least underway and should offer some gorgeous parks and views as well.

[NYguy]

Yeah, the greatest natural asset the city has is its nearly 600 hundreds of miles of waterfront. It's great to see the massive efforts being done to take advantage of it and return it to the people.

The Vision 2020 Plan is a more in depth look at planning for the fwaterfront's future, from the Bronx to Staten Island:
http://nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/cwp/index.shtml
http://nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/cwp/presentation.shtml

[Obey]

Since this has a park and public space with retail it will be a nice place to go.

[Dac150]

This is the type of development you like to see and want to continue to see. It may be unrecognizable now because we’re living it; but the city is going through a major positive transformation in terms of development.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Dac150

This is the type of development you like to see and want to continue to see. It may be unrecognizable now because we’re living it; but the city is going through a major positive transformation in terms of development.

That's true. About 15 to 20 years from now, there are developments that will be taken for granted as being part of the city, but right now we're just looking at the initial stages. I'm talking about developments that will change the face of the area they are in, from Hunters Point, Willets Point, Atlantic Yards, Coney Island, and of course the massive skyscraper developments in Manhattan. Either one of these developments alone would be a major undertaking, epecially in a city that didn't make major initiatives for these types of developments for decades.

[NYguy]

http://archrecord.construction.com/n...ters_point.asp

New Library by Steven Holl Part of Grand Plan for Hunters Point



September 21, 2010
By C.J. Hughes

Public libraries across the country are cutting employees and closing facilities, but the one that serves the borough of Queens, New York, is taking an opposite tack: It’s planning to open one of its largest branches to date, and it’s hired architect Steven Holl to design it.

The city announced in July that it had chosen Holl to design the 20,000-square-foot facility, which will sit by the East River, across from the United Nations complex. The $21 million project, which is set to open in 2013, will break ground next summer. A schematic design will be unveiled in November.

The Hunters Point neighborhood, where the library will be built, has undergone a major transformation since the 1990s. The former rail-yard now features a half-dozen residential high-rises, plus a public school and parkland. Four new apartment towers, a second school, and more parks are planned for a nearby parcel.

The library is expected to offer shelving for 85,000 books and DVDs, as well as a performance space and offices. It also will have slightly more room for community meetings than other facilities do, up from 75 seats to possibly 100, says Peter Magnani, a library director. Also on the site will be an information kiosk for Gantry Plaza State Park, located next door.

“This is a really important building for us from a public-relations perspective,” since it will be visible from so many high-traffic roads, like the FDR Drive and the Queensboro Bridge, Magnani says. “The message it will send is that our library is a beacon of knowledge.”

The Hunters Point library, which will be the 63rd in Queens, will serve a borough that seems to take reading seriously. With 23 million items loaned a year, the library system is, its officials say, the busiest in America. (In New York, the Queens Library operates separately from the New York Public Library, which serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, and the Brooklyn Public Library, which covers Brooklyn.)

Holl, who is based in New York, has designed a smattering of projects there, like the Higgins Hall Center, a glass-walled 22,500-square-foot wing completed in 2005 that connects two architecture school buildings at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute.

More recently, the firm designed the Campbell Sports Center for Columbia University, where Holl is a tenured architecture professor. The planned five-story, 48,000-square-foot complex, which will abut Baker Field where Columbia’s football team plays, is to feature offices, and auditorium and a hospitality space, though its design is a work in progress.

The Queens library would be Holl’s first public project. Because funding will come from public sources, the firm’s selection was made by a city agency, the Department of Design and Construction, which picked Holl from among a short list of eight candidates. Those pre-screened candidates participate in the agency’s six-year-old Design and Construction Excellence program, which encourages creative public-works projects.

For architect Chris McVoy, senior partner at Steven Holl Architects, New York’s decision to boost library service while similar institutions reduce it speaks to a larger point: The Internet may not be as detrimental to physical texts as first thought. “A decade ago people were predicting the death of books,” he adds, “and we have found the opposite to be the case.”

______________________________


Just a little more on the height range of the Hunters Point towers...

http://www.nycedc.com/ProjectsOpport...n%20Design.pdf

The nine towers would be narrow and rectangular and would range in height from 260 feet (26 stories) to 400 feet (40 stories). Two of the nine towers would be permitted to rise to that maximum height. The new buildings would be residential, with retail and community facilities at the base.

The tall towers on Sites A and B would also be clearly visible in the distance in views up Manhattan Avenue from the commercial hub of Greenpoint. These towers would join the Queens West towers already present in that view corridor and would not block any important visual resources beyond. Overall, therefore, the proposed actions would not adversely affect any visual resources visible from the Brooklyn portion of the study area.

From Manhattan and Roosevelt Island, new buildings at Site A and Site B would contribute to the creation of a new Queens skyline, which together with Queens West to the north would appear as a prominent collection of towers and lower buildings. This new skyline would be similar to what is anticipated immediately to the south along the Greenpoint waterfront in
Brooklyn as a result of the recent rezoning there.

[NYguy]

http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-ne...-years-making/

Park Rehab Ten Years in the Making
East River Park Won't Re-open Fully Until Next July


The reconstructed promenade at East River Park

October 19, 2010
By Matthew Schuerman

Residents of the Lower East Side and the East Village have been waiting for almost ten years to get their largest park -- East River Park, between Jackson Streets and 12th Street -- back in tact. And it’s still not finished.

One day in late June of 2001, the mile-long dilapidated riverfront promenade was suddenly shut down. The Giuliani administration feared it might collapse under the weight of the thousands of people who were expected for the Fourth of July fireworks just days later.

The city has reopened the park -- snuggled between the FDR Drive and the water -- segment by segment, as each segment is finished. The playing fields were revamped several years ago. A long stretch of the promenade opened earlier this year. But the three or four southernmost blocks are still shrouded behind a chain link fence.

James Raily, a medical assistant trainee who grew up nearby, welcomed the improvements.

“The railings to the poles right near the water, they used to be black,” he said. “The pavement had cracks.”

Raily used to ride his bike up and down the promenade with his father back in the 1990s. Now, 26-years-old, he visits with his girlfriend.

“It’s completely different now. It has more lights now. It’s more open, more exposed, like hey, everybody should have a good time,” he said.

But Raily and other East Village and Lower East Side residents have had to be patient.

Henry Stern, Mayor Giuliani’s parks commissioner, predicted the promenade would be closed for two years. That’s grown into something more like ten years.

Mayor Bloomberg’s parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, actually had his first summer job cleaning up beer cans at East River Park. He returned to the Parks Department years later and worked his way up to Borough Parks Commissioner for Manhattan, the position he held when the promenade was shut down. He said he’d taken a close interest in the reconstruction.

“Quite frankly, I’m not satisfied with the pace of this project,” he told WNYC. “There have been times when I’ve gone there and thought I don’t think they have enough people on the job.”

The Parks Department chose the contractor, Pile Foundation Construction Company, in 2004 because it was the lowest bidder. According to an internal memo at the time, a database check uncovered some issues that came up during previous jobs that contractor conducted for the city, but nothing that disqualified the Long Island firm.

Benepe said the Parks Department considered defaulting the contractor, but decided against it because doing so would probably result in litigation, and more delays as the job was bid out again and a new company hired.

During the five years since construction began, Pile Foundation several times ran afoul of state laws intended to clean up New York’s waterways, according to the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Inspectors have cited the contractor for dumping dirt from the construction project into the East River, or failing to take steps to prevent such erosion from happening.

The DEC provided WNYC with a video that inspectors took that shows a dilapidated barge floating in the East River, with a large piece of Styrofoam about to fall off. Another video shows a back hoe dumping potentially contaminated debris into the East River.

“This is an unusual situation,” a DEC official, Regina Seetahal, said in an e-mail. “The number of violations, their duration, and the level of gross negligence and misconduct encountered during this construction project are rather unusual and not comparable to most other projects.”

Anthony Rivara, the company’s president, wouldn’t return phone calls. In 2007 and again in 2009, he waived his right to dispute DEC’s allegations and agreed to pay a total of $350,000 in fines.

The DEC has also cited Rivara for sinking barges that he had been using at other construction sites in New York waterways -- though none of those events took place before the bids for East River Park were opened.

Neither the violations, nor the park’s delays, have gotten much attention. Perhaps that’s because the East River Park is easily confused with a much flashier new park planned for the riverfront immediately to the south: the East River Esplanade.

Emir Lewis, a filmmaker who grew up on the Lower East Side, had another theory. He moved back to the neighborhood several years ago and goes running in the park frequently.

“I don’t think people ever expected it to get done in a prompt fashion,” he told WNYC. “I don’t think there’s a lot of anger. If this was happening on the Upper East Side, there would be people burning draft cards in the street.”

Benepe said the park’s reconstruction should be completed by next July.

[Obey]

I had no idea they finished a park here. Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and now this! We are so green.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

i took a walk over to Delancy st. yesterday and found myself here,its actually really beautiful though when i look across at the Queens skyline,the lack of urbanity and decrepit waterfront sprawl of warehouses and abandoned factories made me cringe....

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

when i look across at the Queens skyline,the lack of urbanity and decrepit waterfront sprawl of warehouses and abandoned factories made me cringe....

That's why it's such a blank canvas for new developments - both along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront...

[NYguy]

http://www.dnainfo.com/20101101/down...ver-waterfront
City Offers Glimpse of New East River Waterfront



November 1, 2010
By Julie Shapiro

The new East River Waterfront won’t open for another two months, but it’s already a beautiful place to visit.

Waves lap the edge of the overhauled esplanade, largely muffling noise from the elevated FDR Drive. The wide, open-to-the-sky plazas afford panoramic views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the river. And, beneath a layer of construction dust, the long-promised planters and seating areas are beginning to take shape.

"It’s an amazing thing to see," said Cathy Jones, a senior design associate with SHoP Architects who has been working on the project for years.

The public will finally be able to start enjoying the new East Side park, designed to rival the tonier West Side, when the first two-block section between Maiden Lane and Wall Street opens around the end of this year.

Ultimately, the $150 million East River Waterfront will create a 2-mile landscaped walking and bike path from the Battery Maritime Building up to Pier 35, just north of the Manhattan Bridge.

The highlight of this first section is what the city calls a "lookout," a series of stone steps leading down to the water. The bottom step will flood at high tide, offering a rare chance to dip a toe in the East River, Jones said. The steps also drop the esplanade railing well below people’s sightlines, creating an infinity edge effect from street level.

"It literally gets you as close to the water as you can," Jones said as she gave DNAinfo a tour recently.

Planters flank the lookout and will dot the rest of the esplanade as well with trees and native sea grasses. Hexagonal pavers in a variety of gray tones are already creating a playful pixilated pattern. For seating, SHoP designed both traditional benches and more innovative bar-style stools along an undulating railing at the water’s edge.

This two-block section of the esplanade also includes a 4,300-square-foot oval dog run, with whimsical touches such as a tall golden tree and larger-than-life sculptures of a dog bone and a squirrel.

Just north of the dog run, the city hopes to open a 4,000-square foot restaurant this summer in a new pavilion under the FDR Drive. And sometime next fall, the city plans to unveil the new double-decker Pier 15, including a cafe, a maritime education center, recreational space and docking for historic ships.

The project’s goal is to serve not just the many tourists who already visit the South Street Seaport, but to draw local residents and New Yorkers as well, said Nicole Dooskin, assistant vice president at the city Economic Development Corp.

"It will be a really unique experience," said Dooskin, who especially likes the vistas from the upper level of the rebuilt Pier 15.

"There’s nowhere else where you can be on top of a pier just looking out onto the world," she said.

This "lookout" will allow visitors to dip their feet in the East River.



A rendering of the soon-to-open section of the esplanade, looking north toward Pier 15.



Pier 15 is scheduled to open in fall 2011



The new two-level Pier 15 will include a cafe and a maritime education center.



From left, Christine Oates, program manager for Jacobs construction firm; Cathy Jones, senior design associate with SHoP Architects;
and Nicole Dooskin, assistant vice president at the city EDC.



The city is paving the esplanade in 16-inch stone hexagons.



A new bike path will run along South Street.



This section of the esplanade includes a large plaza that's open to the sky.

[NYguy]

First of a three page article in the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/re...1&ref=nyregion

New York’s Next Frontier: The Waterfront


Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens as viewed from the Edge, a new luxury condo in Williamsburg.

By MARC SANTORA
November 5, 2010

STANDING on the roof of the Edge, a luxury waterfront condominium project under construction in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, you can’t help but be taken in by the grand sweep of the Manhattan skyline.

But what Jeffrey E. Levine, the developer whose company is building the Edge, sees when he looks to the north are vast swaths of undeveloped land stretching along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront.

“It is a great opportunity to buy land and warehouse it for development,” said Mr. Levine, the president of Levine Builders, which operates Douglaston Development, builder of the Edge.

Many other major developers, real estate lawyers and city officials are thinking along similar lines. Even with new construction slowed by a troubled financing environment, the groundwork is being laid for the next great phase of waterfront development in the city.

The Bloomberg administration recently unveiled a draft of a comprehensive waterfront plan, known as Vision 2020, that includes more than 500 prospective projects costing tens of millions of dollars. These range from efforts to increase access to the water for kayakers and canoeists, to measures to protect against rising sea levels resulting from climate change.

“Vision 2020 is a blueprint for the next 10 years and beyond that will change the way New Yorkers live for generations to come,” Amanda Burden, the director of the Department of City Planning, said in October at a public hearing on the report’s recommendations. She said that the goal was for the water to become the “sixth borough.”

“The water should become a part of our everyday lives,” Ms. Burden declared.

After years of aggressive rezoning and more than a decade of environmental cleanup, sizable tracts of land along nearly 600 miles of waterfront in all five boroughs are positioned for development. And despite persistent uncertainty in the real estate market, the dozen or more large-scale residential projects that are soon to begin construction, are under way or were recently completed across the city will provide the foundation for that next phase of building.

That being said, even with the groundwork laid out more clearly than at any time in recent years, a casual reading of the history of development in the city reminds us that the grand plans of today have a way of falling apart if public support, municipal needs and private profit cannot be made to converge.

[NYC4Life]

The Bloomberg administration recently unveiled a draft of a comprehensive waterfront plan, known as Vision 2020, that includes more than 500 prospective projects costing tens of millions of dollars.

Sounds rather cheap for such large ambitions

[Busy Bee]

Mark my words, in 20 years or so, there will be a major push to demo the FDR south of the Brooklyn Bridge.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Mark my words, in 20 years or so, there will be a major push to demo the FDR south of the Brooklyn Bridge.

It could happen. We see what happened with the old West Side Highway.

[Muskavon]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

i took a walk over to Delancy st. yesterday and found myself here,its actually really beautiful though when i look across at the Queens skyline,the lack of urbanity and decrepit waterfront sprawl of warehouses and abandoned factories made me cringe....

You know, I look thru all these NY developments and get excited about the transformation. Then I read something like this and this comment is what makes me cringe.

What the heck made NY great to start with? What made the wealth? Where are steel beems that make NY made? Where is your furniture, transportation, toothbrushes, fuel, alarm clocks, etc made? Once much of that was made right there in that "horrible" sprawl of warehouses and factories...or at least that was the stopping point for it. They don't make that stuff in sleak 88-story penthouses. Ok, so great...all that has been shipped off and you can redesign your city. That is good and you can dream in a new era. The privaledge of temporary wealth.

So you can think "green" and "urabnity" and so forth in your own little world and think of yourself as "clean"...but you still use toothbrushes, furniture, alarm clocks, fuel, food, etc. You just import them now from other places. Are you gonna go off on the places that built the new factories to serve you? They are sprawling swaths of land with big and ugly warehouses and utitlitarian factories spread all over thousands of acres. Is it pathetic they aren't "urbane" too? Why haven't they come to know what you know? Where should the factories that serve your needs be exactly? Where would you not criticise the art of providing you with what you demand as a civilized human? It disturbs me how elitist your comment is.

That "decrepit waterfront sprawl of warehouses and abandoned factories" gave the people who came before you an ability to make the "urban" existence you find so wonderful. Granted the property use for such in Queens has long since past. Pretty much all of that money you are now sending to China. And maybe the fact our wealth is being sent overseas at rapid rates explains some of the reasons Queens hasn't been developed into an urban mecca sooner. Who can afford to deal with it? Maybe the Chinese will do you better. But don't let them fool you into thinking all those old factories aren't now sprawled across their country pouring pollution everywhere unchecked and unnoticed with zero environmental concerns to contend with. You are living in a dream in NYC. It's a fake world. the world that provides your consumption exists outside your borders. Clean up NYC and surrounding all you want. You'll still demand a dark, dreary factory somewhere out of sight and out of mind affordably produce your needs tomorrow.