LOCATION AND INTRODUCTION location: Riverside Drive bet.ween 65 St. and 72 St. Manhattan, New York

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1 Riverside Park South LOCATION AND INTRODUCTION location: Riverside Drive bet.ween 65 St. and 72 St. Manhattan, New York The original Riverside Park stretched from72nd to125th streets,and has since grown to include a section from125th to 155th streets.the portion of the park named Riverside Park- South stretches from 59th to72nd streets, where the old Penn Central Yard used to stand. Riverside Park South also extends south to the southern tip of Manhattan, following the Hudson River. (GOOGLE MAP: brief introduction: Riverside Park is a scenic waterfront public park on the Upper West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The park consists of a narrow four-mile (6 km) strip of land between the Hudson River and the gently curving rise-and-fall of Riverside Drive. When the park was first laid out, access to the river was blocked by the right-of-way of the New York Central Railroad West Side Line; later it was covered over with an esplanade lined with honey-locusts. Riverside Park also contains part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway which encircles Manhattan s waterfronts, with car-free bike routes.

2 SITE HISTORY AND EVOLUTION The 191 acres (0.77 km2) of land which form the original area of the Park (from 72nd 125th Street) were undeveloped prior to construction of the Hudson River Railroad, built in 1846 to connect New York City to Albany. The first proposal to convert the riverside precipice into a park was contained in a pamphlet written by William R. Martin, a parks commissioner, in In 1866, a bill introduced into the Legislature by commissioner Andrew Green was approved, the first segment of park was acquired through condemnation in 1872, and construction began. The conceptual plan for a new park and road was drawn by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of the nearby Central Park. Subsequently, a series of designers set out to devise the new landscape, incorporating Olmsted s idea of a park with a tree-lined drive curving around the valleys and rock outcroppings and overlooking the river. From 1875 to 1910, architects and horticulturalists such as Calvert Vaux and Samuel Parsons laid out the stretch of park between 72nd and 125th Streets according to the English gardening ideal, creating the appearance that the Park was an extension of the Hudson River Valley. Primary construction was completed in about In the 1930s, Robert Moses completed the Westside Improvement Project to transform the park, which had become a haven for squatters. Moses s project added new landfill west of the tracks, covered the New York Central rail line, and constructed the Henry Hudson Parkway. The park and the parkway were done so skillfully that the public is generally unaware that the Freedom Tunnel rail tunnel now used by Amtrak is underneath. The project, which cost more than $100 million in the 1930s, was twice as big as the Hoover Dam project. (World Landscape Architect)

3 (Thomas Balsley Associates,2014) In the 1980s Donald Trump owned the 57 acres (230,000 m2) of land just south of Riverside Park that had been the Penn Central freight rail yard. Inspired by six civic groups (Municipal Art Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, New Yorkers for Parks, Regional Plan Association, Riverside Park Fund, and Westpride), which all opposed his massive development plan, Trump agreed in 1990 to a scaled-down plan that would also expand Riverside Park by 23 acres (93,000 m2). This new Riverside Park South, stretching between 72nd and 59th streets, is the central element of the Riverside South development, which even down-scaled is the biggest private real estate venture currently under construction in New York City. Portions of the former rail yard, such as the New York Central Railroad 69th Street Transfer Bridge are incorporated into the new park. With the addition of Riverside Park South and Hudson River Park, created between Battery Park and 59th Street as part of the 1990s West Side Highway replacement, a continuous waterfront right-of-way for pedestrians and bicyclists now stretches nearly the length of Manhattan from north to south.

4 MONUMENTS Riverside Park is embellished with numerous notable monuments and statues, including the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument at 72nd Street (Penelope Jencks, sculptor), the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at 89th Street, the Joan of Arc statue at 93rd Street (Anna Hyatt Huntington, sculptor; John V. Van Pelt, architect), and Grant s Tomb, inspired by the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. The Amiable Child Monument is located on the slope north of Grant s Tomb, and commemorates the long-ago death of a beloved child, a small boy who died in what was then an area of country homes near New York City. One side of the monument reads: Erected to the Memory of an Amiable Child, St. Claire Pollock, Died 15 July 1797 in the Fifth Year of His Age. The monument is composed of a granite urn on a granite pedestal inside a wrought iron fence. The monument, originally erected by George Pollock, who was either the boy s father or his uncle, has been replaced twice due to deterioration. The monument is thought to be the only single-person private grave on city-owned land in New York City. Riverside Park almost received a monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. A granite plaque was set in the paving at the end of the Promenade near 84th St. on October 19, Eleanor Roosevelt Monument (sculpture adventures 2014)

5 Joan of Arc (sculpture adventures 2014) Amiable Child Monument (sculpture adventures 2014)

6 PHASES INFORMATION phase I Phase I of Riverside Park South, a 7-acre section from 72nd to 68th Street was officially opened to the public. This section of the new park includes a soccer field, basketball courts, handball courts and a recreational pier. Pier I, at 70th Street in the Park, was originally part of the railyard and was reconstructed to its original length of 795 feet, but where it was once wide enough to fit four parallel railroad tracks, it has been narrowed considerably and is now only about 55 feet at its widest part. Most piers are perpendicular to the shore, but Pier I was built at a 55E angle to the shore to facilitate the transfer of rail cars from their tracks to a waiting barge. (RIVERSIDE PARK CONSERVANCY)

7 phase II Phase II of Riverside Park South stretches along the river from 70th Street down to 65th Street, south of the pier. The design of Phase II includes two plazas, at 66th Street and at 68th Street, and a natural riprap shoreline. The park hosted a big Caribbean-themed celebration and family event as a grand opening for this new section in early June of Phase III is another waterfront section of the Park that starts at 65th Street and continues down to about 62nd Street. It was opened in August of 2006 to the sound of train whistles, in honor of the site s former use as a railyard. Phase IV, the southernmost waterfront section of the Park, opened in One of the unique features of this section is a train locomotive a literal reminder of the site s history as a former train yard. No. 25, is a 60-yearold, 95-ton engine that most recently labored on the Brooklyn waterfront. Now in its retirement, it is the centerpiece of a plaza at 62nd Street, and a play destination for young and old alike. (RIVERSIDE PARK CONSERVANCY) Phase III is in process, there would be phase III and IV coming to residents of new york city hopefully in the future.

8 Art Spots in NYC s Riverside Park South Frolicking Stray by John N. Erianne Transitions Through Triathlon by Sherwin Banfield Ringo by Reina Kubota Wave by Anne Stanner

9 Preservation: High and Dry & Preservation: A Wonderful Life by Anna Kuchel Rabinowitz Spirit 2013 by Morito Yasumitsu The Bathers by Beñat Iglesias Lopez

10 (Thomas Balsley Associates,2014) REFERENCES 1.Thomas Balsley Associates. (2014).Riverside Park South.tbany.com. Retrieved May 9, 2014 from 2.RiversidePark Conservancy.(2014). About the Park.riversideparknyc.org. Retreived May 8,2014 from 3. Riverside Park South Waterfront/New York USA/Thomas Balsley Associates.(2014). Retrieved May 8, 2014 from Pieces of Art to Spot in NYC s Riverside Park South Before They re Gone.(2014). Retrieved May 8, 2014 from 5.Google Map [Map].(2014). Retrieved May 8, 2014 from