The newly-opened public space between Blue and Bell Slips at Greenpoint Landing. (Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
August 13, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
A new space has opened along the Greenpoint waterfront as part of an ongoing development and a years-long promise to build out publicly-accessible green space along the shore.
The green space opened last week between Blue Slip and Bell Slip, two pathways built between Commercial Street as part of the Park Tower Group’s massive Greenpoint Landing development
The new site, to be maintained by NYC Parks, includes a waterfront esplanade, a lawn, and a picnic area all spanning 1.5 acres, according to a Greenpoint Landing spokesperson.
The triangular lawn sits at the tip of Bell Slip, directly across from the completed 7 Bell Slip and the not-yet completed 37 Blue Slip, two buildings that form part of the planned 10-building Greenpoint Landing project.
South of the lawn are a series of fixed picnic tables, trash cans, and seating areas, along with a variety of plantings and small trees.
Picnic tables at Greenpoint Landing’s new publicly-accessible space. (Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
The open space, with views of Manhattan and Long Island City, ends at Blue Slip, where 41 Blue Slip is currently under construction.
The newly-opened space is part of what will eventually be about 4 acres of publicly accessible waterfront area as part of the Greenpoint Landing development.
Amenities in upcoming parts of the waterfront park, which will span from Box Street down to Green Street, include a dog run, cove, pier, plaza, along with pathways, plantings, and seating areas. In addition, two city parks under different stages of construction—Newtown Barge Park and Box Street Park, will connect to the Greenpoint Landing waterfront.
The public park along the waterfront was promised to the neighborhood as part of the 2005 Williamsburg-Greenpoint rezoning, where private developers seeking to build by the water would be required to help build out publicly accessible space there.
The new space at Greenpoint Landing makes the developer the first to provide the concession, even as prior reports said “The Greenpoint,” an entirely separate development at 21 India St., would complete a roughly 30,000 square feet waterfront park by spring 2018. The park, however, is still under construction.
The entire 22-acre Greenpoint Landing development will have approximately 5,500 residential units when completed, of which 1,400 apartments will be affordable. Three buildings have been completed so far as part of the project.
BKLYNER was first to report on the esplanade’s opening.
A lawn within a newly-opened green space at Greenpoint Landing. 37 Blue Slip is at the foreground, with 41 Blue Slip in the background.(Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
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14 Comments
During and after the rezoning, the community’s rezoning task force spent so much time out of their live to create a vision, and a master plan. We also spent a lot of time working with city agencies on the zoning text amendment revisions and waterfront access plan revisions. Then we worked with the Parks Dept to create a master plan. If the city, particularly DCP and the Parks Dept weren’t going to enforce the amendments and use the master plan, why did they waste precious community time? The current Greenpoint Landing design, ignores zoning text and ignores the community vision and reason for 197A and rezoning in the first place. That was to improve the environment and create green space. There’s nothing environmentally friendly or green about the design. GPL even wanted to slash the amount of lawn it provided. The planning and design is a disgrace.
Don’t let them build anything that NYC Parks Department will be responsible for, it will not be maintained.
Agreed anon. In a park nearby Transmitter, run by NYC Parks, while I have met several park employees who do their jobs and should be applauded, there is a woeful lack of service especially with park police, dogs digging up dirt, bikes and skateboards nearly running over people, derelicts living there, pot smoking etc. Greenpoint Landing is gonna have to have extra park employees/police if they want to maintain the quality of the area.
Nice Job GPL, mostly very nice. I would like to congratulate George Klein. Who personally told me the reason we needed big towers instead of small buildings was for waterfront access. (hmmm) Some functional issues here. Benches too close to the railing. Double wide benches with no back support that look just weird. Picnic tables that have (bum sleeping) dividers that are really hard to get into. Whats up with cheap plastic benches – aluminum would have been nice. No water access (for now a good thing its a Superfund site.) I recommend a new design team for the rest of the 10 buildings – it could be better for the effort/money put in.
So much concrete! They take our sky with their super structure and they can’t give us more natural space with plants and trees? Parks Dept. needs to rethink the deign for the rest of the esplanade and give the community REAL green space.
Yup, way too much cement. Uninviting, minimalist, has a corporate feel. No grass or green to sit on. No shade (trees will take years to grow and they are hemmed in inside planters not in regular soil so they will be limited in height). Plastic benches heat up. Who is this intended for? Not locals or local kids for sure.
I agree. Why is there so much concrete and black furniture…is that plastic? Who was in charge of this show? I thought we were supposed to get a beautiful green shore like Hunter’s Point in LIC. Instead it is monotonous, yes like a corporate plaza, with no chance to be at the shore like in Transmitter Park. What a missed opportunity and shame. What happened to the Master Plan for the Greenpoint waterfront? You can find it in LIC and Brooklyn Bridge Park! How did this happen? What were these developers thinking?
It has killer views of midtown Manhattan and you can see from the WTC up to the 60s in Manhattan. You can also see a good part of LIC and the northern tip of Greenpoint.
I would love to find out how they will handle the fireworks crowd assuming they don’t close it off. The barges are a stone’s throw off the esplanade.
NYC Parks is gonna maintain it??!! If you believe that I am a bridge I want to sell you a little farther down the East River. Greenpoint Landings is gonna have to do part time maintenance if they want to keep it in shape.
If you have to ask the price you can’t afford it. A small one bedroom on the non Manhattan side near the ground is $3,100 and it goes up from there. I was amazed to see there are no balconies and the windows are paned in small pieces meaning it keeps out a lot of the sun and view.
Phase two of ten, another app. 30 story monster is going up right next to it and the two “affordable low housing shanties” are already occupied and have a beautiful view of the abandoned chemical factory on Clay St. but no Manny views at all.
The lobby is beautiful.
I think it’s sad how new developers come and take away our beautiful city view. I have been living in greenpoint all my life 43 years of it. I always enjoyed taking walks at night just to relax and watch the city lights unfortunately that isn’t possible anymore. Now its extremely over crowded and that’s overwhelming. What was once family oriented is now a place full of strangers. When will it stop!!!!
Not entirely true. Yes Greenpoint was family friendly back in the day, but it still is, there are plenty of kids here. In the old days you could not see the city lights, they were blocked by abandoned factories, streets, piers etc. Now there are beautiful parks.
Where I agree with you is that it is now overcrowded, too expensive and transportation impaired and not my demographics anymore, ie senior.
Also, the strangers you mentioned are just a new group of people just like the British replaced the greenpoint Indians, and then the British were replaced by the Germans, and then the Irish and then the polish and then the Spanish. In a certain amount of time the hipsters will be replaced by somebody else.
It’s called America.
Greenpoint will never be the same as it was ,,,, we old greenpointers miss the neighbor hood we grew up in ,,,so sad to see all these changes and most of all , that the LONG TIME RESIDENTS WERE FIRSED TO LEAVE BECAUSE OF THESE GREDDY DEVOLPERS !!!
I agree ,,,, I HATE THIS NEW GREENPOINT !!!! So sad to see all these new buildings being built and all these new people who don’t even keep there apts clean there pigs ,slobs ,,,most of the. Have cats they don’t clean the litter boxes ,,, ???? hate this change can’t wait for my hubby to retire to get out of here
Too much cement, not enough ‘green’
The view is awesome and the waterfront access is great. But, I agree with Adam, there is too much hardness and rigidity to this design. There are design rules & guidelines these developers are supposed to adhere to that promote a much more organic design instead of the corporate plaza feel this parcel has. If the community is forced to live with these out-of-context towers which they voted against in 2005, the City could at least press these developers to create more inviting beautiful spaces along the water’s edge as is codified.