Lower Manhattan Community Hosts Awareness Event to Halt Sanitation Plan and Expand Hudson Rise Park

Local resident support from Casey Affleck, Laurie Anderson, Jennifer Connelly, Kirsten Dunst, James Gandolfini, Lou Reed and Michael Stipe

NEW YORK, March 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Tribeca Community Association and Canal West Coalition, announce that they will host “The Hudson Rise Picnic,” a community awareness-building event on Monday, March 23 at 7 p.m. at 375 Hudson Street. The initiative supports halting the development of a gigantic, half billion dollars, two acre, Mega-Sanitation facility at NYC’s Spring & Canal Streets.

Performance artist and local resident Laurie Anderson commented: “The Hudson River is an inspiring and beautiful part of our city. When you see what other cities do with their riversides and ports, it’s kind of staggering how long it’s taken New York to realize we live next to this national resource, a national treasure.”

“The Hudson Rise alternative plan addresses both the needs of an expanding residential community and the city’s desire to relocate sanitation facilities to the north,” said Stas Zakrzewski of ZH Architects. “Our design calls for layers of many new types of public spaces in the neighborhood, making it a destination within Manhattan.”

“Hudson Rise Picnic” is a grass roots event supported by the local community, many iconic New Yorkers and residents and businesses owners who are passionate about the lower Manhattan environment and waterfront.

About Hudson Rise

Hudson Rise is an American Institute of Architecture (AIA) awarding community-based plan. It features three uniquely programmed plateaus accessed by a series of ADA accessible green pathways which shelter a new Department of Sanitation garage.

Created by Z+H Architects and Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects, Hudson Rise will provide an urban-scaled promenade and green space for the community with a new 102,000 square foot landscaped terrain, a two district sanitation garage and UPS truck parking facility with a critical connection and linkage between the infilling Hudson Square street grid and recreational facilities currently being developed within the context of the Hudson River Park and Pier 40. The former terminus of the Highline, Hudson Rise at new St. Johns Park will accommodate the majority of Department of Sanitation facilities now on Gansevoort Peninsula at 14th street so that the Hudson River Park could be expanded there.

Like the Highline, the design would augment a green matrix on the eastern side of the Westside Highway, creating a 2.5-acre rooftop park on top of the sanitation garages. The proposal also envisions a safe above-grade crossing to Pier 40 at Houston Street, an active 16-acre recreational area of the Hudson River Park, to prevent any further injuries and deaths of park users there. The plan is estimated to cost $200MM less than the current city’s Plan, which is strongly opposed by residents in Hudson Square, Tribeca and SoHo and the community because of the unfair relocation of all of the facilities, servicing Lower Manhattan to 59th Street, east to Lexington Avenue, to be consolidated at Spring and Canal Streets, a neighborhood that already has the worst traffic congestion, 2nd worst air quality, and among the highest asthma rates in the city.

    Contact:
    Phil Mouquinho
    917.439.2383

    Carole DeSaram
    845.876.7472

    Michael Kramer
    917.622.5154
    imaginehudsonrise@gmail.com

SOURCE Hudson Rise