NY Aims to Become a Great Harbour City Once Again

The view from pier six on the Brooklyn side of the East river is breathtaking: the majestic skyline of downtown Manhattan boasts its latest addition, a new residential tower designed by Frank Gehry. In the distance to the right, the spires of the Empire State and the Chrysler buildings reflect the sunlight as if dipped in molten gold.

But the pier itself is not such a happy sight. A wasteland of concrete, rusty steel frames, rotting blocks of wood and mounds of gravel, it is testament to the decline of this stretch of Brooklyn, as well as to the neglect that for many years has defined New York’s relationship with its waterfront.

There are few cities in the world that can compete with New York for the extent and diversity of its water. It has 520 miles of shoreline – more than Chicago, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle combined. The city is embraced by two powerful tidal rivers, the Hudson and the East river, and two major bays, Long Island Sound and the Atlantic, affording New Yorkers the pleasures of 16 miles of beaches.

Yet, until recently, you would hardly have noticed it. New York City looked inward to its famous buildings and Central Park, away from the gift of its waterways. As the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has said: “At some point in our history, we literally and figuratively turned our back on the waterfront.”

Now Bloomberg and his team have declared that they are determined the waste will be brought to an end, that New York will be reconnected with its water. Bloomberg has announced a $360m (£215m) three-year action plan that aims to bring the shoreline back into the heart of the community.

“The water is the connective tissue of this place – we see it as our sixth borough,” said Amanda Burden, the city’s chief planner. “The ambition is to make New York City once again one of the world’s great harbour cities and to reclaim the water as a part of New Yorkers’ everyday lives.”

That is not an insignificant goal. Julia Vitullo-Martin, an expert on cities at the Regional Plan Association, said that making the most of rivers, lakes and seas had become an economic imperative. “When you think of any successful modern city – London, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Sydney – they are all making great use of their waterfronts.”

Under the new plan, 130 projects have been funded including 14 new greenways and esplanades and 20 hectares (50 acres) of new waterfront parks. New Yorkers will be encouraged not just to go to the water, but to go on to it. Within three years, there will be 60 launching pads around the city for those who want to go canoeing or sailing.

From this summer, a high-speed ferry service will run every 20 minutes between Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, which Burden says will help blur the boundaries of the five boroughs and integrate the city. Economic incentives will be used to revitalise the port, which remains the largest on the US east coast, providing $6.8bn in business revenues.

The paradox is that New York became the powerhouse that it is today largely because of the water, both in terms of its population, which swelled with the arrival of European immigrants landing at Ellis Island, and economically, with the triangle trade in cotton and slaves between Africa and the American Deep South.

“It’s incredible given its origins that the waterfront has become such a dead loss to New York,” said Lisa Keller, a historian at the State University of New York and executive editor of the Encyclopedia of New York City.

The trouble began, Keller explained, in the 1840s when railway lines were laid along the shoreline, cutting off New Yorkers from their rivers. That was accentuated in the early 20th century when the main roads through Manhattan, the East River Drive (opened 1929) and the West Side Highway (1931), were carved in concrete swaths all the way along the respective perimeters of the island. “You have just two arteries in Manhattan – only two – and they put them both on the water. That was crazy!” said Keller.

When low-cost housing was built after the second world war, that too was put on the water. Industrial decline in turn took its toll, leaving large stretches in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn derelict and dangerous to the public.

Since he entered City Hall nine years ago, Bloomberg has tried to tackle this sad anomaly. The city has bought up 151 hectares of shoreline and turned it into parks and recreation areas, and there are already 20 miles of accessible waterfront paths, such as the greenway along Manhattan’s West Side, which has become a favourite haunt of joggers and cyclists.

Burden said that the aim of the three-year plan was to build on what had already been done and knit it together so that New York really began to feel like a water city once more.

There are still daunting hurdles ahead. The major highways and housing projects that created the problem in the first place cannot be removed without massive expense, which New York cannot afford, and much of the waterfront remains in the hands of private owners who may resist public access.

But the change is palpable, and spreading steadily across the city. In June, on the Manhattan side of the East river, a new Waterfront Park will open within walking distance of Wall Street. And within a year or so pier six on the other side of the river will no longer be the concrete wasteland it is today. Work has begun that will transform it into a park where Brooklynites will be able to watch open-air films on balmy summer nights or stroll up to Brooklyn Bridge, where the waterfront has already been converted into glorious green public space. That stunning view of the Manhattan skyline will then be there for everyone to celebrate, not behind the ugly wire fence that encloses the pier but from the water’s edge with the powerful East river lapping at your feet.