Chelsea’s Hudson Riv. Pk. section buoyed by $21 million

BY Patrick Hedlund

Community Board 4 member Robert Trentlyon has a running joke about his years of work on the Hudson River Park, the stretch of waterfront he’s been advocating for the past two decades. In it, he compares himself to one of the main characters in John Steinbeck’s classic “Of Mice and Men,” who longs of one day tending to his own rabbit farm.

Only in this case, the farm is the park itself, which it was announced last week will receive $42 million in funding to help complete construction of the Chelsea and Tribeca sections.

“I was running around, screaming, ‘we don’t want be the next Second Avenue subway,’” said Trentlyon, a founder of the Chelsea Waterside Park Association. He’s also a member of Board 4’s Waterfront and Parks Committee, the Hudson River Park Trust Advisory Committee and Friends of Hudson River Park—and now, his farm might finally be within reach.

The $42 million allocation—to be split evenly between the Chelsea and Tribeca sections—provides a welcome boon to construction of the park’s Chelsea Cove section, running from 22nd to 26th Sts. and covering Piers 62, 63 and 64.

The development of Pier 64 off 24th St. should be finished by the end of this year, Trentlyon noted, while decking work continues just south at Pier 62 and Pier 63 awaits complete overhaul.

When tentatively finished late next year, the Cove will feature more than nine acres of open space, a 3.5-acre “great lawn,” a waterside garden, a skate park and carousel, and a public art piece, according to Hudson River Park Trust spokesperson Chris Martin.

Connie Fishman, president of the Trust, broke news of the record funding to Lower Manhattan’s Community Board 1 last Monday, giddily telling members, “I’m $42 million richer than I was yesterday.”

The new state budget granted the Trust $20 million in capital funds and an additional $1 million from an environmental protection fund. The city had already promised to match at least $20 million in state money, and Fishman expects the city to kick in the additional $1 million match, as well. The Trust will split the money between Chelsea and Tribeca, with each receiving $21 million.

“This year was a record, making up for last year,” Fishman said last week, noting the Trust received only $5 million from the state in 2007, delaying work.

The funding allocation was a turnaround from March, when then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer tied the Trust funding to the sale of land near the Javits Center.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver pushed for the park funding to be switched to the budget, and got Gov. David Paterson and State Sen. Majority Leader Joe Bruno to agree.

The Cove design, by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, includes a central lawn on Pier 63 with openings cut where it meets the shore, allowing parkgoers to see the Hudson River splashing against the shoreline. A garden with seating, tables and winding paths will lead to the lawn and to Pier 62, which will include the skate park, carousel and an open plaza at the end of the pier. On the north side of the Cove, a small meadow with tall standing stones will lead to Pier 64, which will feature a tree-filled mall.

“It’s going to be very charming, and we think it will be the jewel of the park,” Trentlyon said. “We’re very pleased with it.” He added that many local elected officials—including Assemblymembers Richard Gottfried and Deborah Glick, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who represents Chelsea—had a hand in securing the funding.

However, the budget windfall still does not give the Trust all the money it needs to complete the park. Next year, the Trust will need about $9 million each for the Tribeca and Chelsea sections, which Fishman called a “modest” amount she expected the state and city to allocate.

Like Trentlyon, longtime Board 4 and Chelsea Waterside Park Association member Ed Kirkland also expressed delight in the realization of over two decades worth of work on the park. “We’re eager to get it done,” he said. “This is very good news, and for the Chelsea Waterside Pork Association, we are very happy.”

Added Trentlyon of the group he helped found, “It is amazing that for 22 years, there have been a great number of people in Chelsea that have been part of the organization and have believed in this.”

— with additional reporting by Julie Shapiro