East River Park Phase 1 Opens
The East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project is reconstructing Manhattan’s East River Park in order to make the Lower East Side—which was battered during Superstorm Sandy—more resilient to future flood events. Pratt Center is serving as facilitator for the project’s Community Advisory Group (CAG), an independent entity that is monitoring the construction phase of the project to make sure that community concerns and needs are heard and addressed.
On the last day of Climate Week NYC, and in a heartwarming counterpoint to the Trump administration’s efforts to strip funding for climate resiliency, New Yorkers gathered to celebrate the reopening of Phase 1 of East River Park.
Jointly funded by the City of New York and the federal government, the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project is a coastal protection initiative to rebuild the park and reduce flood risk from coastal storms and sea level rise on Manhattan’s vulnerable east side (East 25th Street to Montgomery Street). The six-year process will raise and reconstruct 2.4 miles of waterfront while integrating flood protection infrastructure and improving access.
The massive project is being done in phases to maintain ongoing use of sections of the park for local residents. In early September 2025, the Phase 1 opening revealed new amenities south of the Williamsburg Bridge, including the amphitheater, basketball and tennis courts, and new access points at Pier 42 and Corlears Hook Park. Local groups organized a “Community Day” as a more inclusive alternative to a traditional weekday ribbon cutting, inviting residents to festively mark the occasion and learn about the new park. The spectrum of the day’s activities—from live music to sports clinics, compost demonstrations to information on climate emergency preparedness—highlighted the critical and multi-faceted role that parks play in New York City.
The day began with a brass band that accompanied a procession of celebrants in ecologically-themed costumes. They snaked their way through the newly opened section of the park, culminating at the new amphitheater where speakers reflected on the Herculean, multi-stakeholder effort required to design, implement, construct, and maintain a major climate resiliency infrastructure project like ESCR. Representatives of community organizations, elected officials, city agencies, and the architects and engineers, spoke to the park’s hybrid function of protecting adjacent neighborhoods from major storm events and upgrading a Robert Moses-era waterfront park for all ages, income levels, and backgrounds to enjoy.
The road to celebrating the Phase 1 opening and the new East River Park has not always been smooth. As Damaris Reyes, Executive Director of GOLES, evoked in her welcoming remarks, a public works project of this magnitude and complexity is rarely without controversy—it’s often easier to be against something than for something.
Initial feedback from community partners suggest that people are largely happy with what they’ve seen of the new park to date, and Pratt Center will continue facilitating the ESCR Community Advisory Group and support their efforts to ensure that the park meets community needs. The full project is expected to be completed at the end of 2026.