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Community efforts help renovate Canal Park
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For a swatch of land not much bigger than a city block, the triangle encompassed by Canal, West, and Washington Streets is quite a privileged piece of ground. It is a living example of how history can be reborn with the help of an enthusiastic Lower Manhattan community.
If you walked past the triangle nine months ago, you would have seen a graveled parking lot cornered by heavily trafficked arterials. In fall 2003, however, that parking lot began to transform back to "Canal Park," designed in 1888 by celebrated landscape architects Calvert Vaux and Samuel Parsons Jr.
The land beneath Canal Park was originally granted to the city in 1686 by James II, and was once a drainage point into the Hudson River from the former Collect Pond on the east end of Canal Street. Once the pond was closed in the early 19th century, and the pier at the west end of Canal became commercially active, the land was drained and developed. This, combined with the new city street grid of 1811, established the triangle as a public square and pedestrian throughway to the Hudson River.
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| Flower Market fills park's perimeter, as depicted in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper |
That busy square evolved into the Clinton Country Market in 1849, officially dedicated as park land in the 1860s, and landscaped by 1871 -- one year into the existence of a then-new city agency called the Department of Public Parks. Trees and shrubs were planted in the park's center, a fence was installed around its perimeter, and the surrounding sidewalk served as the city's Flower Market.
The park earned its real pedigree 17 years later with an elite makeover from Vaux and Parsons. Planning the park as a pedestrian thoroughfare to the waterfront, the pair designed a curved path through the site, which they lined with benches and lighting enclosed by trees and open lawns. Still, the cast-iron fence -- a transplant from City Hall Park -- remained, in an effort to contain the park and its guests from the traffic just outside the gates.
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Rendering of Vaux/Parson plan from 1888
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The neighborhood's industrialization came back into play in 1921, when the city loaned the park's land to the NY/NJ Bridge and Tunnel Authority to use for construction of the Holland Tunnel. What began as a four-year loan lasted nearly a decade, and by then the area had become so commercial that the city chose not to rebuild the park.
By the 1990s, the park had all but escaped the public's memory -- until Richard Barrett and other members of the Tribeca Community Association took a closer look at the effects of a revamped Highway 9A (West Street) on Tribeca, and discovered the park's storied past. The small group soon formed the Canal/West Coalition, whose goal was to restore the park to its 1888 design and organize the traffic that swirls around it.
Barrett, a Tribeca resident since 1976, says that the coalition's fervor was sparked by 9A engineers' plans to add lanes at the intersection of Canal and West, where multiple lanes would merge into one another. It was clearly a plan in need of revision, Barrett says. "It's counterintuitive," he explains. "More lanes don't help traffic -- more capacity only complicates things."
With traffic top of mind in the discussion surrounding 9A, Barrett believes Canal Park's return was essential. "Parks have many functions, and one of them is circulation," Barrett says. "Restoring [Canal Park] is not just about the park -- it's also about implementing a transportation plan that's infinitely better." To boot, he adds that the park will again serve as a pedestrian thoroughfare between Canal Street and the Hudson River waterfront.
Barrett easily dismisses the notion that the park's placement amid the busy intersection will deter leisure visitors, pointing first to the fact that the streets around the triangle have surprisingly light traffic much of the time. But even when traffic peaks, visitors will still come, he predicts. "The number of people using Hudson River Park is incredible, and it's right next to a six-lane highway," he notes. "And every day you'll find Herald Square filled with people eating lunch, and there's more traffic there than here."
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| Rendering by Allan Scholl, NYC Parks & Recreation, shows verdant greenery planned for park |
Above all, the reborn park means that Barrett and his neighbors will have a green haven to enjoy within an otherwise largely industrial landscape. The city's Parks & Recreation Department designers have planned a new Canal Park that will be twice its original size; enclosed by ornamental fencing, cast-iron bollards, and granite curbing; and filled with lawn and plant beds, trees and shrubs, and perennial and bulb flowers.
The culmination of the community's efforts is slated for spring 2005, when, undoubtedly, Canal Park will open to a neighborhood eager to reclaim its cherished green space.
Richard Barrett is writing a book about the story of the park, entitled A View from Canal Park (no release date is set).
For more information about Canal Park's history and design, visit the city's Parks & Recreation Department website, or click here.
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