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Teardrop Park is nestled among several residential towers in Battery Park City*
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Mother Nature's paint box is stocked with a veritable rainbow of Pantone colors, and this time of year she usually whips out her high-octane, autumnal tones -- rich russet, vivid crimson, smoldering umber. In the not-so-distant future, she will harness a crystalline milky-white hue to coat the city streets as snowflakes tumble from the firmament. But, while these palettes are Gaea's predictable selections, Lower Manhattan has had a few painterly, colorful ideas of its own recently: green, green, and more green.
Thirty-seven million dollars has been committed to the greening of Lower Manhattan. Coming from a variety of sources -- federal, state, and city governments, as well as from foundations and corporations -- the result is a verdant swath through a part of the municipality that is not usually associated with parks and trees and shrubbery. So, even though the calendar heralds the onset of winter, the greening of Lower Manhattan is a mini-juggernaut that just won't stop; the process has been evolving since shortly after 9/11 and this first round of LMDC-funded projects will be substantially completed by year's end.
"What gives us our respite are our parks," Madelyn Wils told the New York Times in July. Wils is chair of Community Board 1, which services Lower Manhattan, and a board member of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which provided $25 million of the financing for the new and refurbished downtown parks. Kevin M. Rampe, LMDC president, observed that parks are a catalyst for redevelopment. As such, they promise to be magnets for increased traffic and havens for contemplative time for local workers and residents.
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| Bowling Green Park is the city's oldest park |
Among some of the most notable projects in the refurbishing effort is the rehabilitation of the city's oldest park -- the diminutive island of grass near the foot of Broadway known as Bowling Green. Unveiled on June 14, its refurbishing took less than a year and represents a major overhaul, costing just over $850,000. "Bowling Green is New York City's first park and the site of many historical moments. We're working with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and a huge variety of public and private partners to bring green downtown," New York City Department of Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe commented at the opening ceremony.
Green, indeed…and pink and fuchsia and purple and coral. The lawn within Bowling Green's oval and surrounding its perimeter was resodded and filled with luscious plant life. Both flowering and evergreen, the botanical bounty includes trees, shrubs, and flowers with historic import, among them gaily-colored petunias, violets, geraniums, and azaleas, as well as Franklinia trees and flowering American dogwoods. The visual gemstone of the park, however, remains the majestic fountain. "Our city's planners broke the mold after they made Bowling Green Park -- they literally stopped building parks downtown," Benepe added.
Bowling Green dates back to 1626 when the Dutch Governor Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island. The area that today forms the park had been the last stop of a native trail used by the Lenape Indians. The space was later used for herds of cattle. How fitting, then, that in 1989 "The Charging Bull" sculpture by Arturo Di Modica -- today a popular tourist attraction -- should be erected at its apex.
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| The schemata for Battery Park Bosque |
The park itself was constructed in 1733 and by 1771, the perimeter fence was erected. In 1776, after the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in New York State, the nearby statue of King George III was toppled and beheaded. Subsequently, it has been apocryphally claimed, the finials on the fence were plundered to use as canon fodder, and the fence has remained thusly denuded of its ornamental ironwork for hundreds of years. Even though the fence posts have been refurbished, the finials have not been replaced, a reminder of America's heritage.
Other aspects of Bowling Green's revamping include the reconstruction of the perimeter bluestone sidewalks and the interior pathways. Elegant, antique-style gas lamps and old-fashioned, vintage-style benches (which are fittingly hoof-footed) complete the accoutrements.
"This is just one of over a dozen new and revitalized parks and green spaces downtown, with six to debut in the upcoming weeks," Rampe observed at the ribbon-cutting. And, on cue, the ribbons began to be cut or will be cut soon at several other downtown park sites: Tribeca Park south of Canal Street and Washington Market Park are both complete; the Al Smith Playground is scheduled to open today; the Battery Park Bosque near Castle Clinton is under construction, and its gardens will be installed next spring.
Also notable, and in remarkable juxtaposition to Bowling Green, is a striking sliver of a park, carved out of an allée in Wall Street between Water and South Streets: It's a $2.2-million modernistic slice of glass, granite, and gushing water (a fountain, courtesy of Deutsch Bank). This petite jewel, known as Mannahatta Park, is already getting raves from neighborhood office workers and passersby, eager to snatch a lunchtime break in its minimalist serenity; it will be totally ready for guests at the end of the year.
Another extraordinary green belt is the thoughtfully appointed Teardrop Park -- a new park, not part of the city-led remodeling effort -- which officially opened this fall. Named for the somewhat amorphous shape of its footprint, this commons is a $17-million-dollar tour de force, emblematic of man's ability to sculpt nature and of nature's impact on the quality of man's life.
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| Teardrop Park's two bucolic acres are a haven of sanctum* |
Nestled among several residential towers in Battery Park City, Teardrop Park's two bucolic acres are a haven of sanctum that appear to be transplanted from the Hudson River Valley; indeed, many of its elements, including 1,900 tons of bluestone, granite, limestone, and fossil stones, have, in fact, been painstakingly transported to the city, from Albany, Ulster, and Washington Counties. Its dramatic tectonic geology and delicate woodland ecology contribute to a complex, textured, and disparate landscape.
The park is a visual smorgasbord, punctuated by countless children's play spaces with sliding ponds, interesting sandboxes, and a sand slide; quiet nooks for ruminating and reading; charming rock benches; wading pools; pathways and footpaths to "nowhere;" graduated tiers for seating, carved from wood or stone; and remarkable rock formations. The piéce de rèsistance of the park is a massive, 27-foot-high, 168-foot-long wall, constructed of natural slabs of jagged Hamilton bluestone from Albany County. Evocative of a mountainside, the wall, which neatly separates two distinct green areas, is itself bisected by a portal.
Designed by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., Teardrop Park boasts more than 65,000 plantings, nearly 90 percent of which are native to New York State. More than half of all materials come from within 500 miles of the park, and the park contains 1,600 trees and shrubs, 15,000 perennials, nearly 25,000 groundcovers and vines, and more than 34,000 bulbs.
And if all this doesn't spell g-r-e-e-n, then what does?
For more information about the ongoing redevelopment of Lower Manhattan's parks, please click here. For more information about Teardrop Park, which is bordered by Warren and Murray Streets on the north and south and River Terrace and North End Avenue on the west and east, please visit www.batteryparkcity.org.
*Photos by Stan Ries, courtesy Battery Park City Authority
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