E. River Park plan opponents to march
BY GABE HERMAN
As opposition to the hotly contested
East Side Coastal Resiliency
Project continues, East
River Park ACTION will march in protest
against the plan on Sat., Sept. 21.
The ad-hoc East Village/Lower East
Side community group adamantly rejects
the $1.45-billion fl ood-prevention
project, which is currently slated to
close East River Park for three and a
half years and raise the park’s height by
dumping 8 to 9 feet of dirt on top of it.
East River Park ACTION favors a
plan that uses fl oodwalls and berms
— grassy levees — that it says would
preserve much of the park and protect
it just as well as the city’s plan.
“The city is making this neighborhood
of low-and-middle income people
pay for climate change with a drastic
plan that will kill every bit of greenery
that cleanses the air in a neighborhood
with already high asthma rates,” said
Pat Arnow, the group’s founder, who is
a Lower East Side resident.
On Sept. 21, the group will start
marching at Tompkins Square Park at
noon. They will then go through the
East Village to Councilmember Carlina
The F.D.R. Drive, looking north from the Sixth St. pedestrian overpass,
with East River Park on the right. Community activists fighting
the city’s coastal-resiliency plan want to deck over the F.D.R. Drive.
Rivera’s offi ce on E. Fourth St., where
they will try to convince her to oppose
the plan.
PHOTO BY JIM HENDERSON VIA WIKIPEDIA
Rivera recently joined Manhattan
Borough President Gale Brewer to
commission an independent review of
the city’s plan.
The march will then continue over
the E. Sixth St. foot bridge into East
River Park.
“This total destruction of 57 acres
is wrong and insane, on so many levels,”
said Victor Weiss, an East Village
resident. “We need to at least have our
local elected leaders supporting the
people here.”
Once inside East River Park, the
marchers will hold a rally, with music
and speeches, at the park’s Labyrinth,
just north of the Williamsburg Bridge.
That, in turn, will be followed by a
ceremonial parade along the park’s
promenade, during which protesters
will hold a mock funeral, signifying
that they want to “bury the plan, not
the park,” according to the group’s announcement.
The march and rally will happen two
days before the City Planning Commission’s
vote, on Mon., Sept. 23, on the
project’s Uniform Land Use Review
Procedure, or ULURP, application. After
that, the project will then go to the
City Council for the deciding vote.
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