Eighteen months after the city promised to reopen and refurbish City Hall Park, and one year after the park reopened, the city agreed last week to make the rest of the improvements promised back in 2007.
The renewed agreement between the Friends of City Hall Park and the city will bring an artificial turf lawn, new benches and new cafe tables with chairs to the park.
“We’re all thrilled,” said Skip Blumberg, founder of the Friends. “We’re hoping they do what they promised.”
Bill Castro, the Borough of Manhattan Parks commissioner, announced the agreement during a meeting with Blumberg and the Friends last Wednesday in the park, a Parks Dept. spokesperson confirmed. Castro committed to add synthetic turf and sod to the lawn in the northeast corner of the park, which the Ross School will use during the day and the public will use at night and on most weekends. New plantings will line the edges of the lawn, and nine small benches will provide seating. The city will meet with the Ross School staff to prevent students from damaging the lawn and plants.
The northeast plaza is also getting a face-lift, though not to the extent the Friends were hoping. The plaza will have nine new benches and 10 new cafe tables, each with an umbrella and four chairs, with another 10 tables possible for the future. Parks will announce a timeline for all the improvements later this month.
Blumberg wanted to see more green on that plaza, but Parks said planters, which are sometimes used as security protection, would be a security threat.
The Parks Department designed two greener versions of the plaza but could not implement them because they would cause water to leak into the 4, 5, 6 and J, M, Z subway station beneath the plaza, Blumberg said.
Blumberg is planning a design charrette for later this year to solicit innovative ideas for adding green space to the plaza.
Last summer, the city reopened the northern part of City Hall Park, which had been closed since before 9/11. Blumberg had been threatening to sue the city if the park was not reopened. Now, the Friends of City Hall Park say cyclists are shattering the tranquility of the northern part of the park, since the Department of Transportation routed a bike path through there to the Brooklyn Bridge. Despite the Friends’ concerns, the D.O.T. is leaving the bike path in place for 30 days before reevaluating it.
Blumberg thinks that the Friends’ activism on the bike path issue spurred the city to finish off the other park improvements.
After the meeting with Castro, Blumberg waxed poetic about the importance of City Hall Park.
“Some people get their peace and solace from a leaf blowing in the wind,” he said. “Some people go to church or temple or yoga or Atlantic City. Some people sit in a park.”
–Julie Shapiro
