Yesterday was a beautiful day for wandering along Roosevelt Island’s waterfront. The Omnibus team and fifty of our friends spent the afternoon learning about the history of the masterplan, seeing one of the infamous pneumatic trash chutes in action, and getting a guided tour of the Fast Trash! exhibition (open for one more week!). Thanks are in order for Juliette Spertus, Judy Berdy, Jack McGrath, Adam Michaels, and Marianne Lau for taking us around.

Scheduled tour-guide Donald Richardson, one of the masterplanners of Roosevelt Island, was unable to join us at the last minute. Luckily, Judy Berdy of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society was part of the group and stepped in to fill his shoes. Berdy shared her extensive historical knowledge of the island, from its days as Blackwell’s Island, home to a penitentiary, smallpox hospital and asylum for the insane, to its transition to a hospital complex, renamed Welfare Island, and its subsequent redevelopment in the late 1960s/early ’70s into the Roosevelt Island we know today. The original three-phase masterplan, developed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee, anticipated housing and services for 20,000 residents and turned the island into a car-free zone, connected to Queens by the Roosevelt Island Lift Bridge and to Manhattan by tram and subway (though F train service did not come to the island until 1989). Ultimately only phase one was implemented, and car-free didn’t take hold (though the island is essentially a one-road town — Main Street, supplemented by a few service roads), but the island flourished and is now home to approximately 12,000 people. Development continues, with a newly modernized tramway opening later this year and construction underway for the FDR Four Freedoms Park at the island’s southern tip.

One element of the masterplan that did get implemented — and the topic that piqued the interest of many of our meet-up attendees — is the island’s pneumatic trash system.  Juliette Spertus, architect, curator of Fast Trash! and subject of last week’s Omnibus feature, explained more about the history and implementation of this unusual trash collection system. Together with Jack McGrath, the exhibition’s curatorial assistant, and Marianne Lau, an architect who lives on Roosevelt Island, Juliette walked us around the island, stopping to let us see the infrastructure in action. First stop: Riverwalk, courtesy of Charlie, a maintenance supervisor, who showed us one of the residential complex’s chutes. Next stop: the waste transfer station, where we saw the remarkably unassuming entry point where the island’s two central tubes converge to deposit the trash of thousands and peered in through windows at the facility.

While walking along the waterfront, we caught sight of another project of interest to Omnibus readers: the tidal hydropower turbine project implemented by Verdant Power and Keyspan to harness the energy of the tidal estuary that is the East River.

We wrapped up the afternoon at the exhibition space itself, watching a sample Lamson airtube shoot a capsule over our heads and across the room, looking at archival documentation of New York City’s now-defunct pneumatic mail delivery system, and learning about past experiments and current advances in pneumatic waste management in cities around the world. Juliette, Adam Michaels of Project Projects, who designed and co-organized the exhibition, and other members of the exhibition team discussed the research and inspiration for the show and pondered issues surrounding waste management and consumption on a broader scale. Our nation consumes at an excessive rate, producing a similarly excessive waste stream, one that is whisked away to far-off landfills, making it easy for us to ignore or deny the larger impact our habits create. The relative invisibility of our waste management system, it was argued yesterday, might detract from our perception of individual accountability. Would a centrally-located, highly-visible waste disposal system encourage better practices? How can we learn from the infrastructure investments being made in places like Stockholm, Barcelona or Macau? Both Juliette and Judy also rallied for individual and community involvement on a local level. The existing system is reaching its limits, and those who support its modernization, potential expansion to incorporate recycling, or even exploration of the technology’s plausibility beyond the island must make their voices heard. Sound advice from a Sunday afternoon walking tour.

As always, thanks to everyone who came out to join us. Don’t miss our next event. Sign up for our weekly email, become a fan of Urban Omnibus on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter to keep up with the latest.

Judy Berdy of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society

Charlie, maintenance supervisor, Riverwalk.

Architect and Roosevelt Island resident Marianne Lau.

Project Projects' Adam Michaels and Fast Trash! curator Juliette Spertus.

Photos by Varick Shute or Cassim Shepard.

Tuesday night at Metropolitan Exchange, John McLaughlin, Director of Environmental Services for the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, presented the lecture “Restoring Brooklyn’s Pennsylvania and Fountain Landfills” as part of the Freshkills Park Talks lecture series. The landfills – on Jamaica Bay, near JFK – were opened in the ’50s, closed in the ’80s, and capped and rehabilitated in the ’00s.  While they look like pristine parkland today, they represent a dark chapter in New York’s environmental history: both sites are listed as Class 2 Inactive Hazardous Waste Sites, which means that beneath their surfaces lie unknown quantities of toxins like benzene and dioxin.

Much of McLaughlin’s talk was Landfill 101: he described the type of membrane used to cap the toxins (40mm plastic), the varieties of topsoil chosen to cover the cap, and the plant species used to repopulate the site. He described the difference between landfills receiving municipal solid waste (like Freshkills), and those receiving more insidious toxins, like Pennsylvania and Fountain.  What lies inside a landfill determines its capping and effluent strategies, but interestingly, it also determines the site’s potential for eventual reintegration into larger sociological and political networks. For instance, public access to the sites is currently a flashpoint between DEP and representatives of East New York. The former want to make sure the site is absolutely safe before opening to the public; the latter want to secure open space for one of Brooklyn’s most park-deprived communities.

I found McLaughlin’s definition of ecological restoration salient: “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded.” I couldn’t help but think of the parallel to urban ‘ecosystems’ like Detroit or the South Bronx – different kinds of sites where designers’ efforts are similarly needed to restore damaged ecologies, via a delicate intervention strategy like that described by McLaughlin. Landfills are simply the most egregious of past misdeeds, and therefore symbolize the daunting scale of our challenges.

As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Travis Eby is a recent graduate of the Yale School of Architecture. He loves his stoop in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

West Harlem Piers Park
Linking Riverside Park, which begins at 72nd Street, to Riverbank State Park, from 135th to 145th Streets, the West Harlem Piers Park is the last jigsaw piece in a now unbroken strip of publicly accessible waterfront running all the way up from Battery Park. A safe, continuous and dedicated bicycle path now extends along the west side of Manhattan, allowing a no-dismount ride from the Battery all the way to Dyckman up at 200th Street – a bright feather to the city’s cap, or bike helmet.

Over ten years in the making, the West Harlem Piers Park has been the laborious fruit of many stakeholders and the subject of discussion at every level of government. The site exists where several different neighborhood initiatives intersect: the West Harlem rezoning, the 125th BID westward expansion and Columbia University’s Manhattanville expansion. The complex consultation process brought in many parties, evidenced by the long succession of assemblymen and community leaders who took the stage to thank their colleagues. Congressman Charles B Rangel, who procured federal funds (including still-to-come stimulus dollars), and Assemblyman Herman “Danny” Farrell reminisced about the ferry to the Palisades Entertainment Park in New Jersey and trolley cars which rattled into the area when the West Harlem Pier was still functioning (indeed there were plans to rebuild the pier as an additional stop on the Manhattan Circle Line). Others grimly recollected the site’s seedier and more dangerous recent history: the milk bottles of the erstwhile Borden Milk Factory gave way to crack vials, broken glass and prostitution during the recession of the seventies. Today the park has been transformed into a highly usable and attractive addition to Harlem’s public spaces. Hope Knight from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, and Pam Jones from Community Board 9 both spoke of the site’s proximity to 125th Street, a major east-west connector, and of the ongoing developments planned for the area as being strategic to the park’s popularity.

W Architecture & Landscape Architecture and Archipelago Architecture and Landscape Architecture, who design exclusively for New York City, worked with the EDC to come up with a design for the space on this rather awkwardly shaped sinew of land. Several narrow lawn areas are neatly dissected by north-south pedestrian and bike paths; the southern end of the park has an ample number of benches and reclining areas, facing the water or the green spaces within the park. A triangular void in the decking separates the lawns from a pier-like strip of walkway running parallel to the park over the water, and increases the feeling of proximity to the river as it sparkles and spits underfoot. The strip allows fishermen – who have been provided with cleaning tables – and spectators of the growing kayaking community to be closer to the river whilst being undisturbed by the park’s other users. The park has also been landscaped to allow for small performance spaces, as demonstrated during the park’s inaugural ceremony by the company of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Patience Higgins Trio of jazz musicians.

Local artist Nari Ward was brought into the mix by Percent For Art, which ensures that one percent of public project funding is given over to the arts on site. His three metallic sculptures, derived from the shapes of fishing hooks, punctuate the lawns of the Piers park, while a walkway on the sidewalk edge of the park attempts to weave in spatial memories from the local community and from the history of the site.

Marine Transfer Station at 135th Street
Now relatively benign on the northern fringe of the Piers Park, until 2001 the Marine Transfer Station at 135th Street received 95 truckloads of garbage every day, all of which was largely transported by barge to Freshkills Landfill in Staten Island; the air pollution caused by the garbage and idling trucks exacerbated the locality’s already high asthma rate. The protests against seeming environmental racism gained weight as the negative effects to air quality were compounded by the local bus depot and the North River Waste Treatment Plant just behind the MTS, which processes sewage from all of West Manhattan, as well as the Riverdale area of the Bronx.

Two parties who are highly concerned in contesting the future of the 28,000 square foot space of the defunct Transfer Station are WEACT and Community Board 9, both of whom have been fundamental in the collaboration to develop the park so far. While WEACT, headed by the Jane Jacobs Medalist Peggy Shepard, sees the structure as playing host to further leisure activities such as kayaking, boat trips and a visitor center, Community Board 9 suggests that the creation of local green jobs is of paramount importance and so proposes long-term aquaculture and hydroponic agriculture projects, as well as promoting tourism and cultural activities. Having promised never to reopen the MTS for waste disposal, the Mayor’s office has commissioned WEACT to organize a broad-based steering committee and community-based charrette process that would work to find the best possible use.

We want to hear from designers about precedents and lessons learned from relevant experiences elsewhere, and from users and stakeholders about what they think should be considered too – let us know in the comments section below, and stay tuned to Urban Omnibus for updates. Though the park looks set to become a much-loved spot over the summer months, the MTS will remain ‘hot’ for some time yet.


As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Shumi Bose is an architectural writer and researcher. She is currently working between London and New York, and lives in Brooklyn.