Times may be bad, but the developing waterfront parks can't just quit developing. Particularly when they are supposed to be generating their own income through rent, like the Hudson River Park is.
The pier above is Pier 57, at 15th street, just south of the Chelsea Piers sports complex. The plan for the Hudson River Park always called for this to be developed into...something. Three possibilities for what that something might be were the subject of an article in the NY Times that I read this morning on my way to work (if I eventually leave this city, how I am going to miss reading on the way to work!). Not surprisingly, the Related Company is back - they were the ones behind the big home-on-the-Hudson for the Cirque du Soleil concept for Pier 40 - that didn't go through in the end, but it looks like they've re-tailored their proposal for Pier 57. No Cirque du Soleil this time around, though! Interesting, very interesting. Anyways, you can read about their proposal plus a couple of others here.
In good news, Nancy Brouse, the metropolitan coordinator for the Hudson River Watertrail Association had posted to NYCKayaker about this this morning, and she mentioned that all 3 proposals include access for human-powered boating. Good to hear.
The picture above? That is from the VERY first gallery I ever did - a simple tour from Pier 63 down to the old Downtown Boathouse at Pier 26. It was on Buzznet, which back then was more a Flickr-like photosharing site (it's gotten way buzzier since then, which is sort of why I moved to Flickr & Picasa - I was feeling seriously out of place there among all the pink-haired emo kids!) it was taken with a single-use waterproof camera. With FILM inside. Remember those?
I honestly haven't looked at that gallery in years, but that was the one place where I was pretty sure that I would have a picture.
The picture wasn't so hot. I wasn't expecting it to be. No taking 20 pictures & picking the best one there!
What did surprise me was that I'd written a pretty detailed caption back there in the summer of 2005 - and in the intervening 3 year forgotten at least one of those details entirely! Along with a brief history of the pier & of course some words about the use for which it was most notorious at that time (holding pen for Republican National Convention protesters, I knew people who got sent there) there was a good bit of bubbling about how that pier was almost positively going to be Pier 63's future home, yay! Boy. I had COMPLETELY forgotten about that particular twist in the saga! The final outcome of that particular version of the world is covered, succinctly yet clearly, in the Times article. Sigh. Click on the picture above to read my 2005 writeup.
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