Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg revealed a detailed plan to protect NYC from the effects of climate change, and we're still trying to digest the whole thing (it's 397 pages long). One of the initiatives that stood out to us right away, however, was "Seaport City", a proposal for what would essentially be a new neighborhood along the eastern edge of Lower Manhattan. The idea is that the city would (subject to funding) build a multi-purpose levee to guard against future storm surges and then erect residential buildings atop that newly created land to subsidize some of the costs of the levee.
“Seaport City” is summarized in the “A Stronger, More Resilient New York” plan released by Mayor Bloomberg yesterday as one possible way to protect the eastern edge of Lower Manhattan, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, from future climate change-related effects. The concept is interesting in that it not only proposes building a new levee along the area from the Battery Maritime Building to Pier 35, it also brings up a way for the levee to be self-financing. “This approach would provide the protective value of a traditional levee while also providing new land
on which commercial and residential buildings could be constructed, both to accommodate the City’s growth and to help finance the construction of the multi-purpose levee,” reads the report.
The summary also mentions that “the intention would be for this new East River neighborhood to serve much the same function as Battery Park City does along the Hudson River, which is something many Lower East Side and Chinatown residents have been hoping for for some time now.
Do you think Seaport City is a good idea? Tell us in the comments below.
+ “A Stronger, More Resilient New York” organized by chapter
All images taken from “A Stronger, More Resilient New York”
