Solar One is mulling moving to Murray Hill
A preliminary design for Stuyvesant Cove Park, showing an added floodwall and more elevation, in the East Side Coastal Resiliency Plan.
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
Solar One is planting the seeds of a
new eco-pier.
The environmental nonprofi t
is pitching a plan to move its Stuyvesant
Cove Park programming 20 blocks
north to Waterside Pier, a barren 1-acre
space between E. 38th and E. 41st Sts.
The shift would give the obscure Murray
Hill pier new life, the nonprofi t
says, while simultaneously saving its
own, as well.
Solar One currently manages Stuyvesant
Cove Park, between E. 18th and E.
23rd Sts., and uses it to teach students,
visitors and interns about urban farming,
wildlife management and caring
for wildlife habitats in urban space. It
also uses Stuy Cove for foraging walks
where guides give lessons on ethnobotany
and the park’s history. According
to Emily Curtis-Murphy, Stuyvesant
Cove Park’s manager, Solar One’s programs
in the park serve about 50,000
people annually.
But Solar One’s work in Stuyvesant
Cove Park is threatened since the park
would be closed for construction of
the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project,
set to start next July. As part of the
E.S.C.R. project, the city intends to
construct a series of levees, fl oodwalls
and deployable gates from Montgomery
St. to E. 25th St. to protect the city
from fl ooding from hurricanes and sealevel
rise.
The resiliency project was developed
in response to Hurricane Sandy in
2012. Sandy fl ooded 17 percent of New
York City’s land mass, directly caused
the death of 147 people and cost the
city $19 billion in damages, according
to a report from the National Hurricane
Center. Construction on the resiliency
project is projected to take from two to
fi ve years.
According to preliminary renderings,
Solar One envisions Waterside Pier
becoming home to its solar shed, plus
a wildlife habitat, rows of planters —
680 in total, with 10,000 plants — and
also featuring some form of stormwater
management. According to Curtis-
Murphy, the organization has already
fi lled 60 portable containers with a variety
of plants from Stuy Cove Park.
Ideally, Waterside Pier would have
less passive park space than Stuy Cove
Park and be more agriculture based,
in order to facilitate more scientifi c research.
Curtis-Murphy is interested in
documenting to what extent wild food
grown and then harvested on Waterside
Pier would regerminate, and what
insects and birds naturally would make
their way to the space. These things
were not very well documented at Stuy
Cove, she said.
Ultimately, the space needs to meet
community needs and Curtis-Murphy
hopes that a public meeting about the
plan can be organized for early September.
“I really want to create something
for everybody — people in the neighborhood,
the wildlife, for all the school
kids that visit this park,” she said, “and
we need to work on that together.”
The proposal for Waterside Pier
was presented at a Community Board
6 Land Use and Waterfront Committee
meeting on June 24. Less than two
weeks earlier, the community board
voted on a resolution in favor to the
E.S.C.R. project — but with some conditions,
including a few that pertained
to Stuyvesant Cove Park and Waterside
Pier.
According to the resolution, in conjunction
with the E.S.C.R., the community
board asked for “improved activation
of Waterside Pier” with passive
and recreational spaces, and that the
city also explore the possibility of temporary
green space on the top level of
the Waterside Pier parking garage. C.B.
6 also recommended creating a reserve
fund to rebuild Stuyvesant Cove Park
after any fl ood destruction since, under
the resiliency plan, new fl ood barriers
would only be located to the west of the
park.
Tribeca still city’s priciest area; Lower Manhattan dominates Top 10
BY GABE HERMAN
In an analysis of the city’s most expensive
neighborhoods based on
median sale prices of homes, done
by real estate Web site Property Shark,
Lower Manhattan had an even stronger
showing than usual in the second quarter
of 2019.
Tribeca remains the city’s most expensive
neighborhood, with a median
sale price of $4.34 million. Little Italy
jumped up eight spots from the previous
quarter to land at number three,
with a median sale price of $2.66 million.
Recent sales in Little Italy that
helped drive up the neighborhood price
included two units sold in the Puck
Building, at Lafayette and E. Houston
Sts., which each went for $18 million.
Other Lower Manhattan neighborhoods
in the top-10 priciest included
Soho in fourth place, Hudson Square
at six, the Flatiron District at eight,
Greenwich Village at nine and Gramercy
Park at 10.
The newly opened megadevelopment
Hudson Yards, criticized by some for
being a playground for the rich, seemed
to confi rm that reputation as it entered
the list at the city’s second-most pricey
area for apartment sales. Median sale
prices in the new West Side neighborhood
were $3.86 million.
Manhattan had all but one of the
neighborhoods in the top 10, with
Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill the lone exception.
All neighborhoods in the top 10
saw price increases in the year-overyear
data, except for Soho, which had
a slight dip of 10 percent, but still had
a median sale price of $2.62 million to
come in fourth over all.
Schneps Media DEX July 25 - August 7, 2019 3