The 2nd Coolest Park in Manhattan

In most cities the Hudson River Park would be the best there was but this is Manhattan and the charm of Central Park knows no match. The Hudson River Park, however is an untapped gem in a city of zipping taxis, tourists walking forward while looking up and packed subway cars.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of discovering this park with the man who was instrumental in it's creation, Al Butzel. I discussed the Westway Fill Project on this blog last month. Mr. Butzel met us at 26th street and the Hudson River at Pier 66. There we went out on the pier where a restaurant is set up. There was a big round bar and the cases of beer sitting next to tin buckets gave me a good indication that if it wasn't 9:00 am on a Saturday this place would be hopping. The bar is surrounded by contorted steel "art pieces" and tied up to the pier is a party boat called the Frying Pan. Next trip to the park I will definitely be starting from the southern section of the park and making my way north to retire at Pier 66, beer in hand with a breathtaking view of the city. Across the street from Pier 66 you can see a massive warehouse building with a lot of windows, this is an original building where cargo was stored from the busy port.


We made our way south, meandering out one carefully manicured finger pier and down another. We wandered through Chelsea piers, where absurdly rich parents take their children for gymnastics, basketball practice and skating. The best thing about the Chelsea piers was a section where pictures of the way the piers looked at the turn of the century are blown up to twice your height along the walk. We then walked past a cement pier, that will be turned into park land soon. This is Pier 54 where the Lusitania was last docked before being torpedoed and also where the Carpathia docked discharging those that it saved from the Titanic Disaster (see below). The only remaining relic from that time is a portion of the overhead steel roadway that stands at the entrance of Pier 54. Down a block or so, across the street inland, is a reddish building on a corner with a cupola, this is the hotel where the survivors were taken.


The park is briefly interrupted by an NYC sanitation building before returning to grassy knolls, carousels, skate parks and yoga classes. It is amazing to think that these quiet parks outside a bustling city were once the notorious, rough and tumble piers depicted in "On the Waterfront." Look here for a map of the park and before and after pictures.



As a new environmental attorney it was a very inspiring morning. Against the state and city governments, environmental attorneys were able to, over the course of many years, and armed only with NEPA, a procedural act that requires no particular outcome, create a beautiful park when others meant for it to be landfill, highways and high-rises.