LOCATION

MANHATTAN, NY

AREA 90 acres
0.4 sq. km

CATEGORY
Urban Renewal

Brown-Field
Redevelopment

BUILDING TYPE
Residential
Commercial
Recreational
Locating BATTERY PARK
United States of America Map of Lower Manhattan
Manhattan is the
business center of the
city, and the most
superlatively urban.

Manhattan comprises
of UPTOWN, MIDTOWN
and DOWNTOWN area
all unified by a Grid
Structure

New York- one of the greatest intellectual,

financial, and cultural centers of the world
Comprises of
5 BOROUGHS

1. Manhattan
2. The Bronx
3. Brooklyn
4. Queens
5. Staten Island
BATTERY PARK CITY, Chronology
1524

First European explorer entered the city inhabited

by Lenape tribe.
1609

European settlement in lower Manhattan. (Dutch)..

began trading with Europe. Fort Amsterdam built by
the Dutch at the tip of Manhattan island.
1660 1700

First Anglo-Dutch war, city named New York.

Cannon mounted on beach - the original "Battery."

New York divided into boroughs. Manhattan

1890

created. Lower Manhattan area served as a

prosperous port.
1950

Area along the port by this time was completely

dilapidated. (shipping piers)

Area of the Manhattan, Map of

Mannados, Longe Island, 1661
Development Stages

L
Goals of the Battery Park City Project
1. Expand the area of lower Manhattan.
2. Get people living in downtown again.

L
3. Provide open spaces in Manhattan.

I
D - F
N
A
L
1962 - Revitalization
First ideas are floated for developing 20 rotting piers at the
southwest corner of Manhattan.
To build this "unprecedented new city" on top of the
shipping terminals, with a sort of industrial esplanade along
the edge. Battery Park City
Old Manhattan
To combine housing and offices with cargo handling still Shoreline Landfill shoreline
didn't make shipping appropriate in lower Manhattan.
Development Stages Residential

Commercial
1966 1ST Master Plan Wallace, MC. Harg
Robert Recreational

FEATURES
Offices
Encouraging business development
Creating new housing units and injecting
24 hr life in city.
98 acre landfill for Battery park project

1969 2nd Master Plan Philip Johnson, George Burgee

FEATURES
Encouraging business development, new office spaces
Creating new housing units and injecting 24 hr life in city.
118 acre landfill for Battery park project
LIMITATIONS
Market uncertainty
Overly complicated controls
Financial instability of the authority
Development Stages
1975
The Battery Park City project was broken down into discrete residential
clusters that could be developed independently and incrementally. These
were called "pods," one of which, Gateway Plaza, was built.
The pod turns in on itself and has just one guarded entrance to provide a
controllable, safe environment for three or four thousand people. The
point here is that the city at large was kept out. This was the developer's
solution to the problem of middle-class suburban flight: the attempt was to
bring the suburbs to the city.

1979 3rd Master Plan - Alex Cooper and Stanton Eckstut

1. Created a strong coherent core for prime office expansion.

2. New low density, residential community.
3. Maximum advantage of waterfront.
4. Enhance old form with new views.
5. 30% open space, 20% streets, 50% development

Streets and sidewalks were returned to grade level and made an extension
of Manhattan's grid
This yielded conventional development blocks, which, in turn, yielded
conventional building forms. Each block could be parceled out to different
developers at different times, according to market demand.
1 Central Park
Wall Street 7
2 Times Square

S
K
R
Fulton Street Fish Market 8

3 Broadways A
M Empire State Bldg. 9
The Empire State
4 Sardis
Building, 102-story
The famed Times Square contemporary Art
D

restaurant and bar. Deco style bldg in

NYC, built in 1931.
5 Touring NY
N

Grand Central Station 10

6 Ellis Island Statue of Liberty 11
A

11

Map of Manhattan
L
Surroundings
EAST- West Street, which
insulates the area from the
Financial District of
downtown Manhattan.
WEST, NORTH, SOUTH- the
area is surrounded by the
tidal estuary of the Hudson
River.
Access- Underground
- There is no direct subway
connection; one must
alight at the Battery Park
Station and walk down to
his home/ place of work.
Helps site in not getting
reduced to a thoroughfare.
Access- By road
- Wall Street acts as spine
and provides vehicular
movement along the entire
length of the site.
- Several smaller streets
branch off that lead one
into the site.
- Overhead pedestrian
walkways are provided at
3 points across the street.
Access- By Water
- Situated along river, it is
also accessible through
ferry and waterways.
There are two coves acting as
entry points (viz. NORTH COVER
& SOUTH COVE); and 1 ferry
terminal to Statue of Liberty.
 Use of simple and recognizable
Scheme form, with segregation of pedestrian
and vehicular movement lines.
The project attempted to extend five
corridors of the city grid into its
development thus integrating the city
with the newer edge.

Streets oriented toward Broadway,

which runs diagonally through lower
Manhattan
Defined North- South pedestrian spines as
integral to the overall development
E S P L A N A D E

H I E R A R C H Y
p
e G G
d
e r
s e
r
t
Cycle Highway
r e e
lane
i
a n e
n

Diagonal corridors
North south
esplanade
Scheme

Emphasizing mixed
land use as a
strategy to inculcate
vibrancy through
commerce and
retail activities. 19% 42%

61% 28%

30% 9%
41%
Scheme Bulk Control Strategies
As a component of the
development process,
strategies like tax
incentives were built-in
into the phasing of the
project.
The
Predefined building bulk commercial
controls in terms of the area in
building volume, street between- the
edge etc. though character of Flexible Building Configuration-
maintained gave plenty of the unified Office building should define the
liberty to the developers to development space on the street and articulate
interpret them. . the transition between the
pedestrian scaled environment
Skyline- the massing at and the high rises.
the commercial centre
should step up in
height from the
waterfreont to WTC.

Compatibility with the WTC-

the commercial center
adjacent to the WTC should
not diminish or conflict
between two towers.
Scheme Bulk Control Strategies
Density- FAR 15 overall

Coverage Total coverage of the Street Walls- All buildings shall be

site above 148 feet cant exceed placed on the built to lines up to
38%. of each perimeter of street frontage.

Setbacks Recommended setbacks

and tower set backs are to be
followed.

Distance between the Buildings-

Min. distance between the bldg.s
above a base height of 148 feet
shall be more than 10 feet measured
from the central point of the facing
wall.
Scheme
In Urban Design Terms, importance
was given to the Legibility,
Permeability and Public-ness etc.
whish were the primary project
criteria for the overall development
process.

LEGIBILITY
ASPECT View corridors from west street to
the bank.
PERMEABILITY ASPECT

Creating Areas calling for public

participation.
PUBLIC-NESS ASPECT
Knowing Battery Park City

1 2
Inferences Developing the physical
strategy, making the master
Land initially should be developed by the State Authorities plan, multiplying the sites,
so that it can develop and enforce an amenity package. using urban design guidelines,
The controls and guidelines need to be flexible. selecting developers and
managing the public open
The visual corridors are an important part of the city
development and hence shall be kept intact and
space.
enhanced.

Policies and politics in Urban Design

When developing an extension to the parent city, it is
suitable to continue the linkage patterns.
There should be a development of a connected
sequence of open spaces for public access.
There should be an optimization of resources by proposing
a mixed land use or the concept of time sharing.
Development should be by and large fine grained without
spatial concentration of one function except in specific
cases.
Encourage pedestrianization.
Aspects of social polarization shall be taken care of when
developing a major city sites.
Linkages with the parent city can be strengthened by
adequate transport facilities.
Creating new addresses