Planning is the best defense.
Stretching roughly two miles in length along the Hudson River waterfront, Battery Park City has a responsibility to protect not only its own residents, businesses, and property from the threat of a changing climate, but to also play a key role in the larger Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency initiative to harden downtown’s coastline for the next generation of New Yorkers.
To that end, in the years since Hurricane Sandy — informed by its comprehensive Resiliency Assessment and consultation with community, City, and State partners at dozens of public meetings and feedback sessions — BPCA has initiated and advanced design and construction work on a suite of interrelated resiliency infrastructure projects intended to protect Battery Park City’s 92 acres from storm surge, flooding, and sea level rise.
Now, as BPCA looks to the start construction on the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project, keeping the public engaged in the process is essential. This week, BPCA is painting roughly a dozen light poles along the length of the Esplanade to illustrate the enormity — and urgency — of this task. Ranging in height from approximately 18’ to 23.5’ feet, the blue paint on these poles represents the height of projected storm surge in a future storm event, and the imperative of immediately addressing this risk for the future of lower Manhattan. Explanatory signage describes the purpose of the paint, and where to find more information about Authority’s comprehensive resiliency planning to protect the neighborhood.
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