As climate change intensifies, coastal cities across the United States are grappling with rising seas, more intense storms, and widening disparities in public health and access to nature. These challenges reveal the need to rethink how open spaces are planned and designed. Landscape architecture has become a crucial tool in shaping climate-resilient and equitable cities. It integrates green infrastructure, strengthens social ties, and addresses long-standing disparities in access to nature.
In New York City, East River Park shows what is possible when parks are designed to serve both ecological and community needs. It shows how thoughtful planning and local input can improve resilience, access, and well-being.
East River Park
East River Park Phase 1 marks a major milestone in New York City’s first large-scale effort to protect Lower Manhattan from sea level rise and coastal flooding following Hurricane Sandy. Part of the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project, this transformative initiative reimagines how community, nature, and critical infrastructure can coexist, providing flood protection for more than 110,000 residents while enhancing access, resilience, and quality of life along the waterfront.
The overall intent of ESCR is to seamlessly weave FEMA-certified flood protection infrastructure through, above, and below a series of open spaces lining the East River in Lower Manhattan. MNLA, in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of engineers and designers, shaped a dynamic landscape that blends innovative topography and resilient vegetation to create an immersive park experience.
This phase integrates flood protection below the park, supporting elevated lawns and community spaces. Extensive community input informed the addition of much-needed passive spaces and expanded play areas. A sweeping lawn rises from the water’s edge to meet the landing of a new pedestrian bridge that carries visitors from Delancey Street over the FDR Drive and into the park, one of four planned crossings that improve safety and access between the city and its shoreline.
Visitors arrive at a welcoming new entrance that leads to a mix of active and passive amenities. Ballfields provide open views of the river, while a Nature Exploration area features water elements and salvaged stone and wood from the original park. Basketball courts, painted in vibrant reds, blues, and purples, are framed by dramatic stone spectator seating that celebrates the park’s sculpted topography. Additional amenities include a multi-use field, tennis courts, and an expanded barbecue and picnic area.
A fully-reconstructed Corlears Hook Bridge links the Lower East Side directly to the park, landing at a reimagined flagpole area with gathering and seating spaces. This phase also added six new tennis courts, an amphitheater, expanded esplanade with shaded seating, and direct access to Pier 42 and the Corlears Hook Ferry Terminal—strengthening multimodal transit connections and daily park use.
Here, we introduced 614 trees representing 40 species, each selected to lend distinct character to different areas and strengthen the park’s ecological performance. A diverse planting palette, chosen for its resilience to waterfront conditions and in anticipation of future climate adaptation, frames and connects each space within the park.
Park spaces are threaded by a continuous, widened waterfront esplanade, offering a variety of seating options and a shared-use bike and pedestrian path that runs sinuously through the upland landscape. This newest section of East River Park is both a destination and a demonstration of how critical infrastructure, community, and nature can be woven together to deliver lasting, multifaceted benefits to the public.
Data
Project Team
Led by: NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC), Mayor’s Office of Resiliency (MOR), NYC Department of Parks & Recreation
Agency Partners: NYC Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), DCP
Design & Environmental Team: AKRF + KSE (prime joint venture), Arcadis, BIG, Boomi Environmental, CH2M Hill, Fitzgerald & Halliday, Hazen & Sawyer, Hardesty & Hanover, Jacobs, MNLA, Muñoz, ONE, Siteworks, Wesler Cohen
