NY Environment

Transforming the Upper East Side?

ny-highlineThere has been a push recently in New York’s Upper East Side to transform the area that houses a garbage dump.  Indeed, those in the neighborhood are working on transforming the quite unsightly garbage-transfer station into an attractive amenity.  So instead of residents having to face the garbage trucks, these will be relocated by a quarter-mile-long ramp and covered with a green walkway modeled after the High Line.  In addition, the station’s roof will become a park, akin to the sewage treatment plant along West Harlem’s Hudson River.

There’s no way of getting rid of the transfer station, so, making it into a building to enhance the neighborhood, is, according to board president overseeing the Asphalt Green Recreation Center next door, Andy Nussbaum, the next best thing, whereby people get to enjoy a “lovely park and outdoor space.”

In addition, the Sunset Park waterfront will complete its reconstruction and redevelopment.  Over the next month, New York will be completing Bush Terminal Piers Park construction, located between 43rd and 51st Streets.  It was back in 2006 that the transfer station was proposed by Michael Bloomberg in order to give authority to each borough to dispose its own garbage which would then be brought to the new facility and transferred to barges on the East River to be moved out of the state.  Now, it looks like it’s going to be moving to the Asphalt Green complex periphery.  According to Kathryn Garcia, Sanitation commissioner, they will push ahead with their “open dialogue with the community to find a reasonable, cost-effective solution to their concerns.”