Pier 26, Hudson River Park

Recent visits to Steeplechase Pier in Coney Island and the brand-new Little Island in Hudson River Park reminded me that I hadn't talked about another notable new development along the Hudson: Pier 26.

This ecological park, jutting far out into the river off Hudson River Park, opened in September 2020. It endeavors to give an inkling of the natural ecology of the riverbank as Henry Hudson would have encountered it 400 years ago, before European settlement and centuries of industrial development turned the lower banks of the great estuary into a mostly artificial environment.

A walk down the pier takes you through five ecological zones: woodland forest, coastal grassland, maritime scrub, rocky tidal zone, and the river itself.

These environments are not reproduced, but suggested with native plants and infrastructure.

For example, planting a full-fledged woodland forest might not have been practical, but there are some nice young trees among the multitudinous vegetation.

The pier is designed for active visits, leisurely walks – and just plain leisure.

The Tide Deck at the far end of the pier was designed to flood with the daily tide. (Remember, the Hudson River is actually an estuary, not a river.) So you can only visit it on a guided tour.

But you can walk over it and look down.

A look south offers a familiar sight:

Across the river to the west rises the skyline of Jersey City. Most of these buildings didn't exist when I lived there in the 1980s.

When you're finished exploring Pier 26, you could relax at another new New York City attraction, City Vineyard. I haven't been there, but I have fond memories of its late cousin, the old location of NYC's City Winery. (At the new one, live music is back, unlike when I took these photos back in October 2020.)

Or take a walk down my favorite part of Hudson River Park, the sort-of-hidden Tribeca Native Boardwalk, which winds among gardens of native plants. Can you spot the humans secluding themselves in the next two images?

Educational goals aside, Pier 26 is handsomely laid out and landscaped, a beautiful addition to Hudson River Park.

All photos © Critical Lens Media

Elevated Acre

A garden oasis in the sky in Lower Manhattan's financial district? Just so.

You get to the Elevated Acre at 55 Water St. by a mysterious-looking stairway or escalator you'd never guess leads to a pastoral platform amid the towers of high finance.

In the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic, over the winter when nothing much was blooming and almost no one was working downtown, a few folks still elevated themselves here for a break or a think or a stroll.

While the big field of turf lacks charisma...

...the paths and benches offer nice spots to either squirrel yourself away...

...or take in the river view.

We owe the existence of the Elevated Acre to zoning regulations that allowed developers to build higher in return for including a public plaza on the property. The platform was completed in the early 1970s, the present design in 2005. Untapped Cities reports that in "normal" times there's a restaurant and a summer beer garden, along with scheduled events.

As the website of co-designer Marvel Designs has it, the platform offers "panoramic views of the Brooklyn Bridge and New York Harbor amidst lush seasonal flora and under the plaza’s beacon tower" and is "designed to host a wide range of year-round programs from an ice-rink to outdoor amphitheater and wedding receptions."

The beacon tower doesn't look like much by day, but at night it lights up, announcing the Elevated Acre to passing barges and ferries. (The glass company that outfitted the tower has some nice photos of the tower illuminated.)

All photos © Critical Lens Media

Steeplechase Pier, Coney Island

If "resilient" can mean "being rebuilt again and again," then the Pat Auletta Steeplechase Pier at Coney Island is resilient as advertised (on the sign at its entrance). Its most recent iteration opened Oct. 2, 2013 after Hurricane Sandy had destroyed it the previous year. But the history of this thousand-foot (and now T-shaped) pier goes back to 1904, seven years after Coney Island's famed Steeplechase Park had first opened. Since then the pier has died and lived again, died and lived again.

Steeplechase Pier lies just off the site of the Parachute Jump, an iconic relic that's often thought of as the only remnant of the Steeplechase amusement park. But the pier has been here, in one form or another, much longer than that long-retired thrill ride, and is four times as long as the Parachute Jump is high. (Historical note: The Jump was actually built for the 1939 World's Fair, transported to Steeplechase in 1941, decommissioned when the amusement park shut down in the '60s, and preserved to this day through sheer community will).

Above: the Parachute Jump as seen from Steeplechase Pier
Above: looking west from the start of Steeplechase Pier
Above: looking west from a little farther out on Steeplechase Pier

On our recent visit, one of the first sites on the pier itself was a "Prayer Station" making an attempt to display an ecumenical or even nondenominational spirit.

Much more lively was a percussion party a little farther out.

The main activity at the far end of the pier is fishing. The designers of the present pier provided some fishing infrastructure along with a separate raised walkway so promenaders can not only view the wide ocean but watch the fisherfolk without getting in their way.

One fisherman (not pictured) landed a skate just as we approached. (I think this is a skate and not a stingray – I don't see a stinger.) Displaying it on the plastic-wood floorboards for the gathering crowd to photograph and admire, he explained that he would not eat the charismatic creature but would throw it back, which he proceeded to do after a bit of a struggle to get the hook out of its mouth. He rhapsodized about how the catch was a gift from God, provided so that we all could appreciate the bountiful variety of life in the ocean right here off the teeming beaches of Coney Island. It's a nice thought – maybe he was inspired at the Prayer Station.

Steeplechase Pier became the Pat Auletta Steeplechase Pier in honor of a man known as "Mr. Coney Island" or the "Mayor of Coney Island" (and father of writer Ken Auletta). From the 1940s to the '60s Pat Auletta and his wife Nettie ran Pat's Sporting Equipment on Stillwell Avenue, then managed the Abe Stark Skating Rink for NYC Parks until the 1980s. Auletta's 1991 New York Times obituary bears a correction that's so New York: "Because of an editing error, an obituary in some editions yesterday about Pat V. Auletta, a member of Community Board 13 in New York City, referred incorrectly to Coney Island. It is in Brooklyn, not Queens."

It sure is!

All photos © Critical Lens Media