Coming in 2012: Andrew Haswell Green Park

The design for a new park along the East River was unveiled Feb. 11 to the oohs and aahs of Community Board 8 members. Right now, the spot is an abandoned, industrial stretch of land above the FDR Drive, between East 60th and 63rd streets. In the past, it has been used as a heliport and sanitation garage. The plan is to transform this space into a park with greenery, a lawn, benches, chairs and a pavilion. This project was born out of the community board, which started crafting a plan for the space in 2002 and received City Council approval for the project in 2006. The first phase of the plan's a dog run, green space and seating's is already complete. When all three phases are finished, the park will span from East 59th to 63rd streets, and possibly even farther south. Future portions of the project include renovating the interior of the sanitation garage and developing the land beneath. The estimated cost of the 1.29-acre park is $4.5 million, and it will likely be financed with state grants and city money allocated by Borough President Scott Stringer and Council Member Jessica Lappin. The park is expected to be completed by February or March 2012, should the bidding process and construction, slated for 2011, move forward according to plan. â??Having successfully completed Phase 1, we are expanding construction on this brand new park, which will give the midtown east community a much-needed recreational oasis along the waterfront with spectacular river views. We are especially grateful to the local elected officials who have provided the funding to create this unique open space, said Parks Department spokesperson Cristina DeLuca, in an email. â??It"s wonderful to see how it"s matured into something that will be beautiful, said Paul Buckhurst, the planner for Board 8"s 2002 proposal. Public comments at the meeting were generally positive; one attendee said the plan would bring a â??little Central Park to the area. The board committee that drafted the original park proposal voted unanimously for a resolution in support of the designs presented by the Parks Department. â??I hate to say it, but it"s almost perfect, said Barry Schneider, a board member. The park will be named after Andrew Haswell Green, an obscure 19th-century city planner and civic leader who created the plan to consolidate New York City by annexing Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island to New York City, which was composed of Manhattan and parts of Westchester that are now the Bronx. His other notable accomplishments included supporting the design for Central Park, forming the Metropolitan Museum of Art with private funds and being selected comptroller after the Boss Tweed scandal. He is credited with turning around the city"s finances and using his personal money to pay city workers. The only memorial to his legacy is a bench in Central Park. There will be two entrances to Andrew Haswell Green Park: one on York Avenue and East 60th Street that was once a temporary onramp for the highway, and a second entry point from the East 63rd Street pedestrian bridge. Michael Auerbach, president of nonprofit environmental group Upper Green Side, said that the park will hopefully connect the neighborhood"s waterfront to the rest of the East Side through a greenway that is currently incomplete. â??It just makes the East River greenway so much better, said Auerbach, who is also a board member who favored the park designs. â??It"ll provide a great anchor, a destination, a place to be, for people to gather.