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Archive New York, NY

Built

Little Island at Pier 55

Pier 55, Hudson River Park, at West 13th Street, New York, NY 10014 approximate location

Pier 55 was announced in November 2014, and litigation began in 2015. The park that opened in 2021 retained Heatherwick Studio's raised concrete pots and undulating platform. The schedule and reported cost changed substantially, but the sources reviewed do not allocate all of that increase to litigation.

What got built

Current photograph of Little Island at Pier 55 in New York.
Photograph by Jakub Hałun, 2023-10-01. Source. CC BY-SA 4.0.

This photograph was verified against the project and published with recorded first-party, public-domain, or reusable-license rights. How the visual evidence works.

What changed

  • The Pier 55 park was announced in November 2014 with an initial cost estimate; later pre-construction estimates reached roughly $130 million to $160 million, with completion then anticipated in 2018 or 2019.
  • The City Club of New York filed litigation in 2015, delaying the project, while redesign, escalation, and scope development also occurred before completion.
  • The park opened May 21, 2021 with the elevated-platform concept: 280 concrete piles supporting 132 pot-shaped structures.
  • Independent opening coverage reported a final cost of approximately $260 million. The sources reviewed do not support assigning the entire increase to litigation alone.

Why it changed

Litigation beginning in 2015 delayed the project, but the sources reviewed do not establish that it alone caused the full increase to the approximately $260 million reported final cost. Redesign, escalation, and scope development may also have contributed; the core elevated-park concept was retained.

Details

Status
Built, and it follows the rendering.
Where
New York, NY
Neighborhood
West Village / Meatpacking District waterfront
Developer
Hudson River Park Trust, funded primarily by Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg through their family foundation
Architect
Heatherwick Studio, with landscape design by Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects (Signe Nielsen) and structural engineering by Arup
Rendering credit
Heatherwick Studio, for the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation and Hudson River Park Trust
The built result
Photographed by Jakub Hałun, 2023-10-01

Sources

  1. Wikipedia: Little Island (New York City) en.wikipedia.org
  2. New York Times: Little Island opening and reported cost nytimes.com

Research checked . Status and figures are updated when a source changes.

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