Judith K. Canepa chained to the tree in the City Hall Park. The protest is a demand for City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to hold an oversight hearing on ESCR. September 28, 2021. Photo by Nikol Mudrová.

A  small group of neighborhood activists walked into City Hall Park  stopped by one tree in front of the City Hall building and two  women,  Jmac,  who did not want her full name used and Judith K. Canepa, hugged the tree, locked their arms into tubes around the trunk, and started their protest. 

“We’re going to stay here until the hearing is settled or until someone takes us away,” Canepa said.

She lives two blocks from the East River Park and said she  is going to be personally affected if the city moves forward with the ESCR.

The New York City Council wants to build flood control in the Lower East Side. And according to ESCR, the current East River Park should be destroyed and rebuilt all over again on a landfill, which would elevate the ground by eight feet. 

But originally, the city wanted to put flood protection between the main road and park while containing the park basically as it is now. 

NYC Council’s reasoning behind why they switched plans in 2019. Graphics taken from the January 23, 2019 NYC Council Hearing presentation. Provided by Megan Moriarty Press Officer, NYC Parks.

“We want the independent oversight to open the truth for everybody,” said Aresh Javadi, an artist, educator, and one of the leading members of the East River Park Action.

The only person who can set such a hearing is City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who  they are unable to reach, Javadi said.

They held up a sign that read  “Corey, schedule the oversight hearing on ESCR now.” They said they are in City Hall Park so Johnson can see Canepa and Jmac chained on the tree from his office. 

East River Park Action members demanding an oversight hearing from the City Council Speaker Corey Johnson in front of the City Hall. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

According to Javadi, the group filed the Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) to see the new plan, but after their lawyers obtained it, the majority of it was blackened.

“If it’s a good plan, you don’t cover 90 percent of it,” he said. “Now it just seems they chose the plan that costs more money, not the one that has the best interest for the community or the park.”

The independent oversight would clear up some unknowns and bring transparency to the project, activists believe. 

“There should be eight to 10 feet of fill, ok. What kind of fill?” Canepa asked as an example of an unanswered question. “Where is the fill coming from? How do New York City expect to do the project in five years when we’ve never, never done anything on time? How long would we have to live without a park and with more pollution then?” 

Meanwhile, policemen stopped by to check what was going on. 

“They didn’t pressure us or threaten us,” Canepa said. “One of them had a smile on his face and told me, he was just concerned and wanted to make sure we’re ok.”

 Hours later, they got a response from the mayor’s office. Manhattan Borough Director Andrew Kunkes promised they would set up a meeting with the speaker’s department.  

But Johnson still did not reply to the activists’. Kunkes also did not provide any additional information. 

 As the two women  remained chained to the tree the protesters gathered around a nearby chess table  to brainstorm the next steps.

“We’re probably going to do more direct action in the park itself. I mean… October is here, we don’t have more time,” said  protestor Eileen Myles, a poet, and writer from the Lower East Side.

Eileen Myles brainstorming the next East River Park Action’s steps in the City Hall Park. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

They said the city  would start cutting down the trees in East River Park in October. 

Roughly ten hours  after the protest began  the two women unchained themselves and it  was over. Since an  oversight hearing was not guaranteed the protesters will meet at East River Park to discuss next steps in the fight.

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 The protest was peaceful, but about a hundred residents are fed up and ready to chain themselves to the trees to save the park.

“Next week, it’s gonna be disobedience,”  Eileen Myles, a poet, writer, and East River Park Action activist shouted into a megaphone. “We have to go to the next level. Media don’t pay any attention to us,” 

 The first of the 1,000 trees are scheduled to be cut down on Monday which will destroy the downtown sanctuary feeling of the park, protestors said. 

“When the trees we need are under attack, what do we do?”  Myles shouted, addressing the plan to cut down the trees. “Stand up, fight back!” 

Protestors responded by  shouting,“Bury the plan, not the park!” 

Eileen Myles, American poet, writer, art journalist and one of the leaders of the East River Park Action, at the park’s Amphitheather before the protest started. September 11, 2021. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

It wasn’t only shouting that could be heard in the  park  yesterday morning, participants also sang “These are the trees, we need to breathe” while sitting at the promenade along the river. 

Because of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR) plan, the current park has to be practically destroyed and rebuilt all over again. Originally, the city wanted to put a flood protection between the main road and park while containing the park basically as it now, but the Committee on Environmental Protection and Committee on Parks & Recreation Oversight decided to drop that idea. 

On January 23, 2019, both committees changed the approach to ESCR’s plan which they believe would transform the East River Park “faster and smarter,” as Commissioner Mitchel J. Silver explained before the New York City Council. 

The plan would  build a 1.2 protection wall along the water and therefore elevate the whole park by eight feet of fill. According to the plan, newly planted trees would be different and more resistant species than the present ones.

NYC Council’s reasoning behind why they switched plans in 2019. Graphics taken from the January 23, 2019 NYC Council Hearing presentation. Provided by Megan Moriarty Press Officer, NYC Parks.

 He said that the plan should be finished before the end of 2023, a year faster than in the old plan.  But the protesters think  the rebuild will last longer.

“Those projects often delay anyway,” Daniel Efram, the activist running the NY Indisible initiative, who came to the protest.

The new plan promises better resiliency against flooding and around 2,000 new trees since many of the current ones show a decline in their health, Megan Moriarty, NYC Parks Press Officer said.  

 “The thing is, the park is resilient even on its own. Moriarty said, “It flooded, and then the water went back to the river. It’s like a sponge.” 

But Myles disagreed and claimed they still don’t understand why the city changed its policy. 

 The lack of transparency is, in fact, one of the main reasons people joined the protest. They understand that the solution for the flooding problem is needed, even more after the two recent hurricanes. 

 “When the city is hiding, lacks transparency, and does not involve community or even independent oversight, then it’s asking for a fight. So it got a fight,” Efram said.  

Moritarty from NYC Parks said that the department meets with the ESCR Community Advisory Group monthly. 

But Myles said  it isn’t enough.

“ (Mayor)De Blasio is not hearing, he is just repeating his own talk,” she said.

“Don’t tear it down, it’s the only park around.” Protesters shout while sitting on the ground of the East River Park promenade. September 11, 2021. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

 Despite the start of construction  Efram remains hopeful. He pointed out that now, people can really see the urgency considering they can’t run on the path anymore because of the construction. 

  Neighbor Paul Whity just realized he lost his park. He said  there won’t be any other place to go for a run, play tennis, football, or just spend time outside. 

“It is the only outdoor space we have, Tomkinson Square Park is always crowded,” he said. 

 The NYC Parks Dept. has offered up e local St. Vartan Park, Robert Moses Playground and St. Peter’s Field as replacements, but their smaller and farther away.

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“We don’t need to be rescued; we don’t need to be saved. If you kill this park, you are killing us,” said the poet Eileen Myles, a resident of the Lower East Side of Manhattan since 1974 and a leading figure in East River Park Action, who are fighting the plan. “Why would you take green space away from this neighborhood? We need these trees. They protect us.”

The group hoped to draw a thousand people to represent the roughly one thousand trees that can be found in the 57.5 acre public park. And while those in attendance numbered closer to five or six hundred, it was the group’s largest demonstration to date. Many cherish the role the park has played in their lives over the past year and a half and are determined to keep it the way it is. 

“I came here every day during the pandemic,” said Allison Colby. “I love this park. What business does the city have tearing down a thousand trees?”

The $1.45 billion ESCR project set to begin construction in several weeks aims to fortify the park as a barrier for future storm surge and eventual sea level rise. East River Park Action’s efforts to lobby Mayor Bill de Blasio to consider a community plan they say will preserve the park’s integrity have been fruitless. The group has also unsuccessfully sought an oversight hearing from City Council Speaker Corey Johnson.

From the outside looking in, some may applaud the city for taking necessary steps to combat climate change. Yet in a community ‘full of environmentalists,’ Colby said, the park has proven its worth in the wake of Hurricane’s Henri and Ida. (link to the hurricanes. 

“The park is a natural deterrent for the weather, with the marshes and existing barriers, “ said Colby. “It’s doing its job as is. We do not want this park to be destroyed.” 

As the crowd swelled, volunteers in yellow work vests passed out one-pagers detailing the city’s plan. Parents pushed children in strollers or walked alongside them on bikes as drums, tambourines and call-and-response chanting filled the air. People mingled with the sort of familiarity forged over three years of building opposition. So good

Community artist and volunteer Clara Rodriguez-Torres shows up to East River Park on a weekly basis to protest and preserve it exactly how it is. Photo by Frank Festa

For some, like community artist and volunteer Clara Rodriguez-Torres, there’s a deep connection to the land. 

“When my grandpa came from the Dominican Republic in the 70s, he told me stories about watching fireworks over the East River. It felt like a special welcoming,” said Rodriguez-Torres. 

She visits the East Village apartment where she grew up with her grandparents to reminisce. The apartment once rented for $60 a month and now goes for over $4,000. The park represents a part of her childhood that’s still intact.  

“We’re not asking you to vote for anybody or buy anything,” she said. “We come out here every week just for this park because we love it so much.”

In what felt like a last ditch effort to rally support, speakers rotated turns with a megaphone before leading a march down the East River Promenade. Next weekend will feature one of the final public events at East River Park – a House music concert where the group hopes to recruit more believers in their cause. After that, construction will commence, and the beloved park will be forever changed. 

East River Park Action believes the time for peaceful protest has come to an end. 

“It’s going to be civil disobedience after this,” said Eileen Myles into the megaphone when it was her turn. 

Brimming with optimism, Myles urged onlookers to sign up for future direct action, which she says there will be plenty of. 

“We know some of you will be willing to chain yourselves to trees, to climb them, to camp overnight. And, to say fuck you, this is our park,” she said.

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Now, the community must juggle two disasters: the flood vulnerability that Superstorm Sandy revealed eight years ago and remains unchecked and the mounting concern for open park space that the COVID-19 pandemic has made urgent.

During Wednesday’s City Council executive budget hearing, Commissioner Lorraine Grillo, of the city’s Department of Design and Construction, said there will be a “shovel in the ground” in the fall, but that there may be some changes to the order of the phases and the numbers of areas that go under construction at a given time. The current timeline calls for completion by 2025. “We do not want to disturb social distancing in any way,” Grillo said.

“We worked very, very hard to make sure large portions will remain open during the project,” Grillo said in response to a question posed by Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who pushed the comprehensive East Side Coastal Resiliency Project through City Hall. Grillo said the department will make changes as needed, “but our goal is to maintain that timeline.”

Better quality of life and appropriate park access has been a core issue in community resistance to the resiliency plan since last August. Pat Arnow, founder of East River Park Action, one of the community groups rallying against the ESCR plan, said that she had been hoping the pandemic would strong-arm the city to put a pause on construction. Community activists have focused their dissent on sparing local residents from risk, whether it be from flooding, air pollution, or disease. 

“The situation is so dire with coronavirus that it makes our arguments even more urgent,” she said in a phone interview.

Arnow already had expressed displeasure with the idea of phased closures back when they were announced haphazardly in October, a day before an important community hearing. (During that meeting, Councilmember Rivera called the city’s decision to provide phasing information a day before the hearing as “unfair.”) Arnow, when told about Grillo’s announcement last week, said she had a knee-jerk reaction: “My first thought was just like whatever it is, it’s probably going to be bad for us.”

As the plan stands, it includes no provisions for interim flood protection measures during the construction period that is expected to last at least five years. And no one wants another Superstorm Sandy.

In 2012, Sandy ravaged the area with a 12-foot storm surge, snuffing out electricity and heat for thousands of people. Hospitals, severed from sources of power, had to evacuate. The trains, suspended since the day before, were inundated from track to ceiling. Over the course of a few hours, Sandy brought New York City to a halt. Those who heeded early warnings and had the privilege of having a car, a second house, a family friend with an apartment on higher elevation were lucky. But the poor, the working class, the elderly, and the disabled — like those who live in public housing in affected areas —  could not flee. And just like that, Sandy killed 43 people across New York City’s five boroughs. A similar story is unraveling now with the wealthy who have fled to vacation homes as the coronavirus takes hundreds of lives a day in the city alone, forcing officials to reckon with failures in its bureaucracy and infrastructure.

Superstorm Sandy is what inspired the city to elevate East River Park and its surroundings from East 25th Street to Montgomery Street. The ESCR is a much-altered portion of Rebuild by Design’s “The Big U,” a protective system proposed for the lower tip of Manhattan to safeguard the waterfront from sea level rise. The ESCR, which is the first of several “resiliency” projects, initially would have closed East River Park completely for three years. The plan called for the city to uproot 2.4 miles of coastline during that period, rework electricity, gas and plumbing, and pack fill. After community dissent  erupted from East River Park Action and East River Alliance, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last October that the project would be completed in two phases. 

This “phased” version of the ESCR announced in October still had the original goals: flood protections completed by 2023 and an elevation of the park by eight feet by 2025. In de Blasio’s press release at the time, he said the first phase of construction would take place from fall 2020 to spring 2023, during which the vast majority of the park areas from Delancey to Houston Streets would remain open, along with the amphitheater area in the south and the area to the north that runs from  from East 10th to East 12th Street. The second phase was to start shortly thereafter with an end goal of late 2025. Then, the press release said,  that the newly rebuilt portions of East River Park would open from Houston Street to approximately East 10th Street, as well as the vast majority of the park areas from Corlears Hook Bridge to Delancey Street. The Esplanade in the center of East River Park, is also scheduled for reconstruction, but on a separate schedule. 

“The community spoke and we listened,” de Blasio said at the time. “Nearly half of East River Park will remain open throughout construction – without compromising essential flood protections for 110,000 New Yorkers. We are building a more resilient city to meet the challenge of global warming head-on.”

Currently, it’s unclear exactly how phasing will change, if it will at all, said Jeremy Unger, the spokesperson for Councilmember Rivera. Regardless of potential phase changes, the prospect of closing a park, even partially, during a pandemic in a city where fresh air is hard to come by has presented new concerns for the community. In the past few weeks alone, access to open spaces while social distancing in New York City has become a hot-button issue. While Governor Andrew Cuomo acknowledged that going outside is a necessity for mental and physical health, the city does not consider parks an essential service — leaving room for confusion. Either the  parks are packed (or are perceived to be) or heavily policed. Not to mention, the parks that are the most cramped tend to be in poorer areas with less access to open spaces and more air pollution. 

That fact is not lost on Arnow of East River Park Action. “You need to keep this park open for residents,” she said, “and you don’t need dirty air with construction during a pandemic.” 

It’s true — researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health found that higher levels of particulate matter called PM 2.5 were associated with higher COVID-19 death rates, the New York Times reported. The authors suggest that long-term exposure to air pollution increases vulnerability to the coronavirus; the research is currently going through peer review. 

Air pollution has been a concern for both Arnow and and Green Map System director Wendy Brawer, who has advocated for 1,000 trees to be planted in Community Board 3’s area (those trees are now split with Community Board 6). In a phone interview, Brawer mentioned that the removal of mature trees, whether in East River Park or on public housing campuses, presents a concern for air quality, especially now.

“Air quality is not just a nice thing,” Brawer said. “It’s actually a justice issue. It’s really important to slow down that destructiveness, whether it’s in the park or around the park and the work around the park has to do with.”

Arnow said that during the past few months of social distancing, it’s been hard to get an answer about the construction timeline. Initially, construction was supposed to start in the spring with conversion of  Lower East Side Ecology Center’s compost area into a rec space that would have been available for community use during construction in the fall.

Ian Michaels, the spokesperson for the design department said the community resistance to the project caused the delay, not the pandemic.

“There’s been no delay because of COVID,” Michaels said. “A few months ago, the local community asked that we push back the work at the Ecology Center so the compost area could stay open through the summer, and the City agreed. That’s all. The main work is still scheduled to proceed as planned in the fall.”

There had been hope that because of the pandemic, construction would be meaningfully delayed while groups like East River Park Action and Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens, known as LUNGS, push through with an alienation lawsuit that seeks to derail the project altogether or at least get more definitive interim flood protection while it is underway. Charles Krezell, president of LUNGS, voiced similar opinions and said in a phone interview that the lack of transparency or clarity about what’s going on is “such bad public policy.”

“It shows how much they don’t really care about the interests of the community,” Krezell said. “I don’t know what to think. We were hoping our lawsuit is going to put the kibosh on this thing anyway. So that’s that’s our hope right now. But right now, we need temporary storm protection immediately and there’s nothing like that in the offering. So whatever plan they come up with, we’re going to be unprotected for the next five, at least five years, of the community, and we’re having storms rolling in all summer.”

Izzie Ramirez is an NYU  undergraduate journalism student.

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In the dog days of summer, the John V. Lindsay East River Park is a hub of activity. The air of the long strip of land that borders the east side of Manhattan from 12th Street to Pier 36 is filled with the shouts of youth league soccer coaches and the huff and puff of runners passing by. Everything is green, heat, and motion.

Those August days are a far cry from the dreary cold of February. But even lack of sunshine and breath that hangs visible in the air can’t keep residents of the Lower East Side from using the park. It is a gym, a speedway, and a crucial part of their day to day lives – a part that could be at jeopardy in the coming years.

Recent amendments to a plan to renovate the park have residents of the Lower East Side at odds with the City of New York. These changes involve closing the park for several years and destroying the amenities and vegetation that currently exist in the area.

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck New York City, and the Lower East Side took a particularly brutal hit. Severe flooding ruined homes, closed businesses, and wreaked havoc on the park. In response, the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project was launched in 2014 with the goal of redesigning the park to protect the community from future storm surges and the ever-increasing risk of sea level rise, but the original plan did not involve shutting down or destroying the existing park.

Ross Martin’s salt and pepper hair is the only indication that he could be old enough to have lived on the Lower East Side for more than two decades. He and his friend, Marga Snyder, are among those who are not happy with the changes to the project.  

“The main thing is the closure of the park,” said Martin. “What I use the park for most often nowadays is as transportation. Bike, walk, run. It’s a quick way to get downtown. It’s a zero-emissions transportation corridor that they are going to close down for four and a half years.”

For residents of the Lower East Side, particularly in Alphabet City, public transportation options are extremely limited. Martin and Snyder are sitting in a bar that they regularly visit, just a few blocks from each of their homes. From here, the closest subway station is at 1st Ave and 14th Street, a 20-minute walk away.

“The East Side is always ignored in that regard,” Martin said. “We have very little public transportation over here and what we have is very cumbersome. There is no subway this far east, it’s basically a mile walk to the nearest subway stop. The buses are slow and crowded, and the bike lanes aren’t great.”

In spite of their opposition to closing the park, they are not opposed to the project itself. Martin has lived in an apartment of the corner of 9th Street and Avenue C for 24 years and witnessed the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy. He got involved with the project at its inception.

“There is a long history to this design,” said Martin. “In response to Sandy, there was a design competition called Rebuild by Design. The team that got Lower Manhattan was called BIG and they did a design called the Big U.”

“We were a big part of the Big U and BIG,” he continued. “The neighborhood was invited and they spent three to four years.. all these town hall meetings, lots of neighborhood participation, lots of outreach, and came up with a design that people were pretty happy with and a schedule and a phasing that we could live with.”

That is no longer the case with the plan the City is proposing now.

“The City has taken over the plan,” said Snyder. “But they aren’t really giving us any… they haven’t done it before and they aren’t citing any practical information. Not many people have done this before, so we want them to hire an outside expert and do more studies.”

The problem is time. Amy Chester is the managing director of Rebuild by Design, a non-profit organization that grew out of the design competition launched to renovate the park. According to Chester, the federal government awarded the City with $335 million after the competition, but it has to be used by 2022. Chester and Martin both agree that the time crunch is behind the amendments, but Chester is not sure the new plan is a bad one.

“Both of the plans will help protect the city from storm surge and sea level rise,” said Chester. “The plan is to use the park as protection for the community behind. There are many many things you could use for protection, like a sea wall, but the idea was to do something that had multiple uses.”

For some, the idea of a renovation in any form is unwelcome. Jennifer Morales has moved away from the Lower East Side, but has deeply rooted ties to the park as it exists now.

“I learned to ride a bike there,” said Morales. “I learned to drive there, fell in love (several times over) there and spent countless summer days tanning, picnicking, watching fireworks, running in the track, roller skating, go to parties and running in the sprinklers.”

The current plan is to raise the park 8-10 feet by building up the sides and piling fill and soil on top of the trees, track, and amenities that Morales remembers so fondly.

“The idea of it being buried like a corpse makes me grieve as if a beloved loved one has been diagnosed with a terminal illness,” said Morales.

Susan Stetzer, the press contact for Manhattan Community Board 3, said that the “community board has not yet taken a position” and that they “may not do so until the final design is brought to the board.”

The Community Board is meeting tomorrow to discuss the project.  

Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency Committee

Thursday, February 14 at 6:30pm — BRC Senior Services Center – 30 Delancey Street

(btwn Chrystie & Forsyth Sts)

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