The \u201cnew\u201d Wagner Park in Battery Park City opened this week after a two-year closure and a nearly $300 million redesign. <\/p>\n
But New Yorkers should howl to the moon \u2014 and to the state legislature in Albany \u2014 over the desecration of a public jewel, done to suit the agenda of environmental zealots egged on by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the most rotten Lower Manhattan scam since hustlers sold \u201ctickets\u201d to the free Staten Island Ferry \u2014 only the warped park\u2019s victims aren\u2019t tourists but Wagner Park\u2019s millions of annual users, most of them New Yorkers.<\/p>\n
The original Wagner Park, near Battery Park City\u2019s southern tip, opened in 1996 to universal acclaim. New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger \u00a0called it \u201cone of the finest public spaces New York has seen in at least a generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wagner Park\u2019s once-level, river-facing side swelled into a stepped cliff of wooden, bleacher-like seats in an effort to prevent flooding that some feel went too far. Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n
Battery Park City residents as well as New Yorkers from every part of town and tourists agreed. They fell in love with the 3.5-acre oasis\u2019\u00a0peaceful, river-fronting lawns that were ideal\u00a0for sunbathing and taking in views of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. A popular Italian restaurant buzzed indoors and outdoors with happy sun-worshippers and sightseers.<\/p>\n
Now, they\u2019re\u00a0all gone in the name of \u201csaving\u201d the park from a mythical flood<\/a> that exists only in its designers\u2019 imaginations.<\/p>\n The state-controlled Battery Park City Authority is, naturally, trying to cosmeticize the debacle with promises of future outdoor arts programs and hype over four planted \u201cecological zones\u201d that merely take space away from the original lawns.<\/p>\n We\u2019re meant to be impressed by an \u201cintegrated flood barrier system\u201d that \u201cmaximizes water capture and reuse,\u201d a 63,000-gallon underground cistern for rainwater reuse, <\/strong>\u201cflip-up deployables\u201d (whatever they are), sustainable materials, native plantings\u00a0and \u201clush gardens planted with native, salt-resistant species.\u201d<\/p>\n The park\u2019s central area was elevated 10 feet in order to conceal\u00a0a buried flood wall. Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n Much of the lawn was sliced and diced into a ziggurat of paver-surfaced ramps and stairs that have no clear entry points. Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n But park-goers know otherwise.<\/p>\n Novelist Jon Pepper, a Battery Park City resident, said the new pavilion \u2014 slightly larger than the original one and relocated to the east \u2014 \u201clooks like bunkers on the Maginot Line,\u201d a reference to France\u2019s WWII defense that failed to stop the Nazi advance.<\/p>\n Say this for the builders: They delivered, on time and within budget, precisely the lousy product that BPCA brochures promised.<\/p>\n Mature London plane trees were uprooted. The park\u2019s central area was elevated 10 feet in order to conceal\u00a0a buried flood wall. Much of the lawn was sliced and diced into a ziggurat of paver-surfaced ramps and stairs that have no clear entry points.<\/p>\n Jon Pepper, a Battery Park City resident, said Wagner Park\u2019s new pavilion \u201clooks like bunkers on the Maginot Line,\u201d a reference to France\u2019s WWII defense that failed to stop the Nazi advance. Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n The park\u2019s once-level, river-facing side swelled into a stepped cliff of wooden, bleacher-like seats where I saw precious few users on two sunny afternoons this week.<\/p>\n The revamped lawn is, on paper, only slightly smaller than the original one. But it\u2019s effectively much\u00a0smaller due to the way it\u2019s segmented into landscaped portions that aren\u2019t conducive to\u00a0lazing and lolling.<\/p>\n The modest concession building on the park\u2019s eastern side gave way to a lumbering red-brick structure that looms over the lawns\u2019 remnants like an intergalactic invader.<\/p>\n New Yorkers fell in love with the 3.5-acre former oasis\u2019\u00a0peaceful, river-fronting lawns that were ideal\u00a0for sunbathing and taking in views of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n The park\u2019s old, expansive lawn spaces were conducive to lolling and lazing. Gabriella Bass<\/p>\n The BPCA put out a \u201crequest for proposals\u201d to operate a two-level, 5,000-square-foot restaurant \u2014 one-third larger than previous license holder Gigino\u2019s. The greater number of seats,\u00a0combined with the pavilion\u2019s \u201ccommunity center\u201d and rooftop viewing area, will\u00a0shatter Wagner Park\u2019s low-key ambience that was at the heart \u00a0of its charm.<\/p>\n How did this all happen?<\/p>\n Besides enriching a legion of architects, engineers and landscape designers, the mutant \u201cpark\u201d\u00a0is supposed to protect against a theoretical, worse-than-worst case, one-day-or-someday \u201c100-year\u201d flood caused by rising sea levels<\/a>.<\/p>\n