Reply With QuoteWhen good developments on the land that is already there get shot down why create more land right now?
Expanding NYC
March 14, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
The Bigger Apple
By CHARLES J. URSTADT
“THEY’RE not making any new land” goes the adage, but that’s exactly what New Yorkers have been doing for 400 years. After all, Manhattan has grown by at least a few thousand acres since the early Dutch explorers first set foot on the island.
Continuing that great tradition of land expansion is now the key to our economic recovery. By reclaiming thousands of new acres for Manhattan from the waters and smaller islands around us, we could provide unmatched opportunities for commercial, residential and recreational development. And we could do it all without using any government subsidies or bailout money.
Here are five ways to make Manhattan grow:
1. Develop Governors Island, the 172-acre gem of land lying right at Manhattan’s doorstep, for commercial use. The city and state have spent millions turning it into a tourist attraction, but because of budget cuts, the island may not have enough money to reopen this summer.
It was always a mistake to make Governors Island just a day-trip destination when it should be built into a real neighborhood for New Yorkers, with apartments, retail spaces and schools. The success of Battery Park City shows that this can be done without government money: building owners would pay ground rent and payments in lieu of taxes (known as Pilot payments) to an organization not unlike the Battery Park City Authority, which would then deduct operating costs and pay the “profits” to the city.
One longstanding argument against private and commercial development of Governors Island has been its inaccessibility. It was selected as a gun emplacement to guard New York Harbor for this very reason. But access to the island could be achieved by building an aerial tram like the one to Roosevelt Island, by running a ramp off the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel or by simply increasing ferry service.
After all, it was ferry service that brought New Yorkers to Staten Island, an area that by all rights should be associated with nearby New Jersey.
2. Tear down Pier A, the crumbling wooden relic in Battery Park City at the very entrance to New York Harbor. There is some talk of wasting $30 million to upgrade this eyesore, but it serves no purpose and — except for the clock tower erected after World War I as a memorial to fallen soldiers — it has no historical significance. Better to replace the pier with a five-acre quay similar to the Circular Quay in Sydney. A quay could serve as a central ferry terminal, which would pay for itself with fees paid by the ferry boat operators. And the historical clock tower could be properly preserved and incorporated into the new quay.
3. The South Cove of Battery Park City, a few blocks north of Pier A, offers an opportunity to add two acres to Manhattan. In 1969, when I was the chief executive of the Battery Park City Authority, I reluctantly consented to creating this cove. City planners thought it would be a good thing to interrupt our continuous bulkhead and waterside promenade.
But thanks to tidal currents and prevailing winds from the west, however, the cove has never been more than a garbage accumulator. Just take a walk down there, and you’ll see all the waste floating in.
By simply extending the existing bulkhead, eliminating the cove and filling it with sand — as we did to create the rest of Battery Park City — we would have the base for an iconic building that, teamed with the Statue of Liberty to the west, could serve as a welcoming beacon for the best-known city and natural harbor in the world. Perhaps it could be the product of an international design competition.
Again, ground rents and Pilot payments would more than pay for the bulkhead and landfill with no expenditure of taxpayer money — and a monumental building on that new land could also produce a substantial profit for the city. Keeping in mind the value of similar waterfront land and office use, I estimate that one million square feet on those two new acres could yield at least $25 million a year.
4. Develop 50 more acres of landfill in the Hudson River on the West Side, north of Battery Park City. The cost of the landfill, as well as of the public park and recreational spaces that would be part of the new area, could be reimbursed from ground rents and Pilot payments collected from private developers. I have been advocating this additional landfill project for some time and have been faced with the bogus argument that it would kill the fish.
But fish actually prefer the nooks and crannies of the rock formations surrounding Battery Park City’s north marina to the murky silt that was under the rotting piers that we removed to develop the area. The building of a new bulkhead would use large rocks to shore up the concrete wall and between these rocks fish could lay eggs. (And to my knowledge, not a single fish was killed as we filled the original 92 acres of Battery Park City.)
5. Fill in the Harlem River, which separates Manhattan and the Bronx. The Harlem River did not become a navigable waterway until 1895, when the Army Corps of Engineers dredged a shipping canal that provided direct passage for vessels from the East River to the Hudson. Nineteen years later, the creek that had served as the northern boundary of Manhattan was filled in, leaving the neighborhood of Marble Hill, still technically part of Manhattan, physically attached to the Bronx.
So if we were to drain the Harlem River, we would actually restore the land to its original state. We could start by damming it at each end, using fill from local excavations and from dredging operations to clear silt from the Hudson and East Rivers. (Contractors would provide the fill and they’d pay to dump so close to home, which would help finance the project. It’s a double win.) Once the dams were in place, the channel would slowly dry up and eventually the entire area would have some 3,000 acres that could be used for parks, schools, businesses and homes.
Yes, it could take decades to turn the little-used Harlem River into thriving neighborhoods — but time did not deter the Dutch from their initial landfill efforts, nor did it deter those of us who built Battery Park City. To ignore today’s opportunities would leave Manhattan lagging behind other forward-looking places like Dubai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and the Netherlands, all of which have reclaimed land from the waters around them.
As we’ve done for centuries, let’s continue to grow this city — literally — and keep Manhattan “the island in the center of the world.”
Charles J. Urstadt, the chairman of a real estate investment trust, was the chairman of the Battery Park City Authority from 1968 to 1978.
Illustrations by Knickerbocker.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/op...14urstadt.html
When good developments on the land that is already there get shot down why create more land right now?
i would love for them to develop governors island!
only if they dont waste the space with crappy planning and architecture.
and it would be fairly easy to provide access there.
Don't worry, you can be sure they will do exactly just that.Originally Posted by philvia
Roosevelt Island part deux.
^
I was thinking of Roosevelt Island as I read the article. Regardless of the architecture, put a neighborhood on Governors Island, and you'll get a static, isolated community like Roosevelt Island.
if they could make it a destination with lots of retail and residential with a 1400 ft office tower
extend the 1 and increase ferry service. No Calatrava gondolas please!
Last edited by philvia; March 16th, 2009 at 02:54 AM.
With this proposal, Manhattan would no longer be an island.
Where would Manhattan end and The Bronx start (can you imagine the arguing and politicking!)?
What would happen to the Circle Line and other boats that circumnavigate Manhattan? I know it's probably a fairly touristy thing to do, but it's a great way to get your bearings and to see parts of Manhattan not so often given much exposure elsewhere.
And what would happen physically and functionally to all the bridges spanning the Harlem River?
Even if extending the #1 was as easy to do as typing it in a post, what company is going to anchor an office tower on Governors Island?if they could make it a destination with lots of retail and residential with a 1400 ft office tower
extend the 1 and increase ferry service. No Calatrava gondolas please!
And what sort of retail is going to draw people away from more accessible locations like Midtown? You wouldn't get the sort of retailers that depend on destination traffic, and would wind up with neighborhood-service retail - food markets, dry cleaners, etc.
Urstadt should know better than me that until the Verrazano bridge was built, most of Staten Island away from St George was rural. Population increased 35% from 1960 to 1970.After all, it was ferry service that brought New Yorkers to Staten Island, an area that by all rights should be associated with nearby New Jersey.
Boroughs have boundaries, even when they are not separated by water. For instance, Brooklyn and Queens share a land border and they haven't had any problems so why would Manhattan and the Bronx have one?
i wasn't really serious with that post.... but i would doubt that if governors island was to be developed, it wouldn't be "natural". The city would heavily subsidize it and offer a lot of incentives to get the right office/retail tenants there.
Roosevelt island even has subway access so what hope for Governors? I always thought it would be great for high end residential with its unparalleled views.
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