By George Capsis
I was taking a vacation from my morning Times while at Bridgehampton, when MaggieB. emailed me a June 11th article by veteran Times writer Charles Bagli (he writes a lot about real estate), with a title that gave me a quick shot of joy—“Civic Group Sues to Halt Hudson River Park backed by Barry Diller”—oh wow!
As we fought to save St. Vincent’s an occasional wave of deep sadness would overcome me—we were a lone, very small voice that nobody was listening to. Now, here is a noted and powerful voice, The City Club of New York, filing a court action to halt construction of Diller Island “until it undergoes a new environmental review and is approved by the State Legislature”—wow again.
Of course, my distress with Diller Island is not that driving hundreds of reinforced concrete, mushroom-shaped piles some two-hundred feet down into the bed rock will disturb the breeding ground of the Striped Bass, but because it is gratuitously expensively and ugly—which is what happens when a pretentious designer caters to the taste of a rich and pretentious client.
Filing the action against Diller Island is the City Club of New York, a group of independently minded citizens who act when the city process fails (they stopped the destruction of Grand Central Station). Their volunteer attorney, Michael Gruen, spent days working his way through a lengthy “signed” lease between Diller and the Hudson River Park to uncover some surprises.
According to the lease, the city and state have to contribute an embankment and two bridges to the island which will cost $35 million. The city will maintain those bridges and the Diller Island Park after Diller does the planting (more maintenance costs even though the Park has just about run out of maintenance money). Oh, oh, the lease also says that HRPT has to maintain the hundreds of reinforced concrete and steel mushrooms on which the concrete island will be draped like a fried egg.
The lease does say that fifty-one percent of the events on the island have to be free or low cost, but entry tickets for the other forty-nine percent of the events should be set at a reasonable price “in the opinion of the lessor.” The lessor, of course, is Barry Diller—who could invite subway musicians to perform for the “free” events and then charge the going rate for a superstar rock concert.
But it was the secretness that seems to have gotten to the former and first president of the Hudson River Park, Tom Fox.
Fox, who headed the park under Pataki, offered that there is a misconception that the park must be self-supporting, saying it is not necessary for the park to generate operating funds by leasing the three commercially designated piers, but instead that is only an option.
Pier 54, the pier which Diller Island is slated to replace was a very successful performance space and clearly demonstrated that this was something the public wanted, so a facility there could generate operating funds for the Park—but not if Diller is running it and keeping the books.
The British designer Heatherwick is just that—a designer, not an architect. His proposed tree filled bridge over the Thames has run into stiff resistance. I have a personal reason for questioning his design—Diller Island is 2.4 acres and my house is in Bridgehampton. It is literally impossible to have three performance spaces on a plot that small and still have sylvan tree lined paths wending between them—I mean if they book a popular rock band thousands will come and the island’s ability to accommodate the crowd will be a joke.
The place to have outdoor and even indoor performances is the much larger, fourteen and a half acre Pier 40, but it needs $20 to $40 million to encase the corroded steel piles and restore the crumbling reinforced concrete slabs that form the roof and floors—but nobody wants to donate to maintenance, certainly not Barry Diller.
But wait, let’s take another look at that lease that the Park board was so quick to sign. It says that we taxpayers have to build a bridge to Diller Island and that it will cost $35 million, oh wow, we could use that $35 million to encase the corroded piles of Pier 40 and save the $5 million in revenue from Parking. And in the large athletic field on Pier 40 we could easily have a ready-made rock concert space for thousands and, hey, we don’t need Barry Diller to run it, the Park was doing a very good job booking popular events well before he arrived.
Oh wait, what are we going to lose by tearing up this lease?
Barry was going to pay us $1 dollar a year for thirty years so bang, there goes thirty bucks.
Statement from Michael Gruen
Attorney Michael Gruen, President of The City Club and the attorney who is suing to halt Diller’s proposed island, outlines four reasons for the suit in his statement below.
From Michael Gruen, President, The City Club: “…we have started an action to force the Hudson River Park Trust to comply with its governing law and with environmental review requirements in connection with its project to build a 2.5 acre artificial elevated island for concerts, theater and other performances in the Park at about 15th Street.”
“Some of the major claims are:
1) The only environmental review conducted was a preliminary one leading to a determination that there is no possibility of significant environmental damage from the project and, therefore, no environmental impact statement (EIS) is required. This, among other things, flies in the face of a presumption that a project of this size does have significant environmental impacts.
2) The lack of meaningful control over what the Lessee may charge for admission violates a requirement that public parks actually serve the public.
3) The Hudson River Park Act allows only ‘water dependent’ uses in areas that are west of the bulkhead and not existing piers. A performance space is not a ‘water dependent use.’
4) The Act generally allows rebuilding piers only within their historic footprints. The Legislature recently amended that to allow ‘reconstruction’ of Pier 54, just to the south of the area where the island is planned, even if the ‘reconstructed’ pier is outside the historic footprint. That amendment does not extend to building an entirely new structure which is not a pier but an island and has no relationship to the original Pier 54.”
“…..The Trust’s prospective gain from the deal is open to question: It will get $1 rent per year for the 30 year term, and the speculative possibility of 5% of revenues from broadcasting performances on the island. It takes on the obligations of paying some $35,000,000 as its contribution to construction costs, plus paying continually for all maintenance of the structural elements. The Trust will have no control over programming. Some might also think the architecture inconsistent with the rather gritty working waterfront style of the Park. These benefit/detriment issues are, of course, subject to disagreement. But that is exactly what ought to be considered by the Legislature, and through extensive public discussion. This project is being pushed through with far too little public input.”
Call it ugly or wasteful but the bottom line is that Pier 55 has indeed gone through the required reviews and has been endorsed by Community Board 2. There is just something VERY undemocratic when a group of rich lawyers with too much time on their hands (i.e., the “City Club”) takes it upon itself to sue on behalf of the citizens when the local community board has already given its support for the project. It’s like they want to pretend to be the adults in the room who will take away the fun that the people actually want.
Also, let’s not confuse the “City Club” of today with the one that fought Robert Moses and the one that prevented the destruction of Grand Central Terminal. That club died in the 90’s when its membership declined to near zero. The current “City Club” was basically revived from the ashes by the old by Michael Gruen to apparently do nothing other than to sue and obstruct every single project that he and his cohorts seem to personally disapprove of. As a case in point, they sued to stop development at Willets Point – not to save businesses or a park but to prevent development on a PARKING LOT. Thanks to them, we now have a beautiful unproductive PARKING LOT where some development that would have added jobs would have gone. I have yet to see anything the “City Club” has done that actually was PRO anything. Basically it is just a vehicle for these rich lawyers to strut their ego. I don’t know what bee Mr. Gruen has in his bonnet. Perhaps he is doing it to spite his late father Victor who is known as the father of the suburban malls. Either way, no one voted him to be the person to represent us. I find it ironic that he is complaining that Pier 55 didn’t go through the reviews when the most undemocratic thing happening is him and his “club” filing frivolous lawsuits to stop public projects.
As for the pier itself, while the contract does give Diller the right to host private events, lets not look a gift horse in the mouth. The pier that Pier 55 is to replace (Pier 54) is crumbling and is currently CLOSED as being unsafe. It is highly unlikely that HRP will rebuild it thanks to the lack of funds that you pointed out. So the alternative to Pier 55 is no pier at all. Also, while HRP does have a Plan B, the city’s contribution to building the Plan B pier (which will be much more scaled down than Pier 55) is $30 million. So while Pier 55 would require a city contribution of $37 million, the HRP’s much more scaled down Plan B would still cost $30 million (only $7 million less for a scaled down pier – that’s less than 1 dollar per citizen of the city). Also, let’s not forget that Diller is paying for maintenance of the pier for 20 years. That’s a big deal. Under Plan B, the city picks up the tab for everything. So I really doubt that there’s much of a cost savings at all with going for Plan B. And what’s so perverse about Diller being able to have private events at the park when he is making such a large donation? In all likelihood, such events would be at night when the pier would not be used anyway. Also, it isn’t as if piers in HRP aren’t closed off for private events on a normal basis. I seem to recall various times when Pier 26 has been closed off for concerts.
As for the so-called compromise at Pier 40, the fact is that Pier 40 is also crumbling and will likely have to be closed soon. Further, it is a major financial millstone around HRP’s neck. Had the “City Club” and its cohorts not intervened, we’d probably have a much nicer pier in place already and one that’s enjoyed by the citizens of this city. Instead, we have a ruin that is likely to close and that keeps draining the HRP of money.
So let’s stop the mis-information regarding costs, stop calling it “Diller island”, and stop claiming that there has been no public input when there has (Community Board 2 endorsed this for heaven’s sake). When it comes down to it, this is just a one-sided battle of egos started by Michael Gruen and his club of rich people. Give the people this park and don’t let these lawyers have it their way.