East River Park Reopens to High Praise & Some Concerns

It’s real, it’s beautiful, mostly, and it’s LOUD, in parts, most definitely, if not deafeningly.

Say what?!

Hold on, let’s move away from the basketball courts that sit right next to the highway and are half rimmed by a stone-block amphitheater. There’s grass here—real grass that stains one green and that animals could graze on—where it’s somewhat quieter.

Feel that: soft and springy with long, luscious blades; isn’t it nice? Makes you think of Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass,” right? All sincere praise to the grounds crew as of Sunday, June 1—the day after, by coincidence, what would have been the great American bard’s 206th birthday.

That’s just one of this reporter’s many opinions on the now fully opened—and controversially reconstructed—section of East River Park that, at present, is accessible via the Delancey Street Bridge. The entrance to the bridge, opened in September 2024, is located on the south side of Delancey, under the Williamsburg Bridge, at Baruch Place.

Of course, while one section opened to much fanfare, another section was shut down along that part of the esplanade right where it narrows adjacent to the Con Ed facility in the East River just north of the Williamsburg Bridge. That part between Montgomery Street and Stuyvesant Cove Park was closed for 24/7 starting on May 27. Signs posted tell walkers, joggers, and bikers to use the entrances at East 6th Street and East Houston Street to access the new southern amenities because this section will be closed for several more years.

Still, while previously park-goers were funneled to the isolated artificial turf ballfields to the south, now, as of Memorial Day, that the whole megillah of ballfields and basketball courts and walkways is open. It’s a vast improvement.

City officials believe so too, and on Thursday, May 29, they came to the waterfront for a little celebration.

“Today marks another important step forward in protecting and revitalizing our city’s waterfront,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “The newly opened section of East River Park—featuring basketball and tennis courts, picnic areas, and hundreds of new trees—shows what’s possible when we invest in both resilience and recreation.”

“Summer is the perfect time to reconnect with our parks, and these newly reopened areas of East River Park offer something for everyone—from tennis courts and barbecue areas to peaceful green lawns,” said outgoing NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue.

“ESCR [East Side Coastal Resiliency] and its companion project to the south, BMCR [Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resiliency], are unique engineering achievements representing a $2-billion commitment to the long-term safety and prosperity of the Lower East Side community,” said NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) Commissioner Thomas Foley. “Together they are enhancing 3.2 miles of coastline with not just flood protection but also new recreational opportunities and thousands of new trees, shrubs, and other plantings in parks as well as surrounding streets.”

“Opening large sections of the new East River Park represents a major milestone in the generational work to create a more resilient New York City,” said DEP Deputy Commissioner for Coastal Resiliency Laurian Farrell. “This critical project will not only protect the vulnerable Lower East Side of Manhattan from future coastal storms, it is also doing double duty as beautiful recreational space that is sorely needed for the neighborhood.”

“Long gone are the days when a park was just a park; now everything must do double duty to protect against stronger and more frequent storms,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Jeff Roth. “My deep thanks to commissioners Foley and Donoghue and their teams at DDC and the Parks Department for efficiently and cost-effectively delivering a beautiful coastal park that will protect 110,000 New Yorkers from flooding.”

More fulsome words were shared but in the spirit of double duty, some constructive criticism must also be offered. Leaving the past behind, and with the genuine threat of future storms unknown, let’s focus on the present.

First the bad news. The lack of any exercise equipment—not even a single pull-up bar—in such a large, multi-use space is either negligent or an example of prejudicial thinking. Outdoor exercise equipment is very popular, especially for calisthenics. It is egalitarian in function, completely inclusive and generally inexpensive with negligible maintenance costs.

How much would a two- or three-tier pull-up bar (to accommodate users of different heights) cost to install? Note that pull-up bars themselves do double duty, serving also as an anchor for various band and stretching exercises.

A second complaint concerns the basketball courts adjacent to the FDR Drive. “The what?! I can’t hear you!” a companion might ask. “The FDR! Our former governor and president then, our highway today!” the reporter replies.

Manifold as his achievements were, FDR’s legacy in the park is all those infinite thousands of cars you can almost touch through the chain-link fence. There is a construction-vehicle-wide access road between the two baskets on the west side of the basketball complex and the FDR Drive, but that’s it.

This is unfortunate both environmentally and aesthetically. Nobody extols the biodiversity of the concrete jungle more than this parks reporter, but surely something could have been done to mitigate the noise and pollution from the FDR. A berm perhaps?

Elsewhere, farther from the highway, things are happier.

The stone waterfront path contrasts nicely with the grass, and the barbecue areas and picnic tables with umbrellas are well considered. There are four bins for hot coals from the barbecues, but only three portable toilets nearby; how long before one of these bins does “double duty” is open to speculation.

A small soccer field to the north of the basketball courts is welcome, as are the Brian Watkins Tennis Center courts, six in total, though highway noise can be distracting here too.

The landscaping, especially with the late-spring flowers presently in bloom, is jovial.

Fishing along the East River was popular this Sunday, with about a dozen mostly Chinese and Hispanic anglers present, while the dog lovers and their pets were all on their best behavior, leashed and relaxed.

Perhaps the highlight of the day’s visit was the kids and coaches of the OLS Mets, who are part of the Our Lady of Sorrows Parish Little League. The Mets squad, which is sponsored by Frank’s Bike Shop on Grand Street, were doing fielding and coaching practice on the new grass while awaiting field time on turf fields to the south.

Former Yankees and Mets pitcher Dellin Betances is a product of the OLS Little League.

Play ball!