NYTimes: The crowd at the recent meeting of Community Board 3 was agitated. Vaylateeba Jones, a 50-year Lower East Side resident and board official, was especially vocal. “The way this planning is being done is disempowering,” she said. “City officials collaborated with us over four years and came up with a detailed design — only to now return with this entirely new design. Do our voices even matter?”
The topic was the future of East River Park. Once a derelict waterfront space, it had been restored, over 10 years, with well-lit ball fields, children’s fountains and a serpentine esplanade featuring a large sink for fishermen to clean their catch. Then Hurricane Sandy deluged the park, swamping F.D.R. Drive and Lower East Side.
The city’s latest plan to protect from future flooding called for burying the park under eight to 10 feet of landfill, and starting over. This was not the original plan, and that’s what had locals upset. Continue reading>>