Though the topping off took place almost a year ago, the shell-shaped carousel still stands empty in historic Battery Park at the southern end of Manhattan, awaiting its fish-shaped steeds and its landscaping.   

"The carousel site work can't begin until the ground thaws," said Hope Cohen, chief administration and finance officer for the Battery Conservancy, which is building the carousel and funding and building many of the 25-acre park's other amenities. "This will delay the carousel's opening. Hopefully it will open in the fall."  

Hope Cohen. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

Ice and snow are only the latest snags in the Conservancy's plans. It is responsible for the bikeway as it traverses the park, linking the east side and west side of the island. The bikeway along Battery Place and the Town Green on the north side of the park should be done by early fall, said Cohen, but the east side bikeway is another matter.   

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) told the Conservancy last week that it has sent out a Request for Proposals (RFP) for demolition work on the South Ferry subway station that was ruined by Superstorm Sandy, and that it expects to issue a reconstruction RFP this summer.  

"Their plan is to rip out everything in that station except for the platforms and staircases," said Cohen. "They believe that it will take two years to rebuild. This construction will probably impact the bikeway on the east side of the park. What exactly that impact will be, needs to be worked out."

At least there will be a chair to sit on while everyone is thinking about this. Last year, the Battery Conservancy sponsored a contest to design moveable, climate impervious chairs that could be placed on the Town Green (where Fritz Koenig's "Sphere" used to be. That was moved in December to a site near the Korean War Memorial on the northwest side of the park). 

"We are expecting prototypes of the five top chairs this month," said Cohen. "We will exhibit the five chairs at Castle Clinton this spring. People will be able to sit on them, try them out and vote for them."  

She said the Conservancy will mount a fundraising campaign to actually build a set of chairs. 

As for what would keep these chairs from migrating, Cohen said that the designers had to build in "security" as part of their design.

The Battery Conservancy is also trying to build in some security from future flooding. During Superstorm Sandy, water gushed from the park onto State Street, which borders it on one side.  

Now there is a proposal to build four- to six-foot-tall earthworks called "berms" through a portion of the park to deflect floodwater back into the harbor. "Maybe the water would go to Liberty Island. Maybe it would go to Staten Island," said Cohen. "That's far enough away so that hopefully it would be a small slosh and not a big slosh."  

Since the second phase of the bikeway has not been built, the thought would be to make the berms part of that construction contract.    

"This is just a small piece of what needs to be done," said Cohen, "but maybe something we can do quickly and efficiently and smartly now rather than coming back after everything is constructed and ripping it up and doing it then."

Superstorm Sandy has also affected another construction project in the park - the playground that was designed by Frank Gehry. An existing playground was severely damaged by Sandy and has not yet reopened.

"The Parks Department has been telling us all winter that they're going to put down a new safety surface and reopen the playground as is for temporary use for the next couple of years," said Cohen. "I don't know if the MTA reconstruction will interfere with that."   

Given what happened to the existing playground, the Conservancy is re-evaluating the Gehry design to make it more resilient. A technical architect hired to draw up implementation plans for the Gehry concept is "redefining the constraints," said Cohen. "They just shared that with the Gehry people so we'll be going forward with the Gehry people to adjust their design to take into account water management and storm surge. We're very excited about the direction this is going. We hope that the play space will ultimately serve as an educational facility for what the techniques are for water and storm management."

The original price for the Gehry design was $12 million, with $8 million of that already set aside from  public and private contributions. Cohen said that it was possible that the price tag would come down.

"The constraints created by the water management needs limit the number of items that can go in the space because you need to be able to sponge up the water," she said. "That might reduce some costs."

She said that she expects the new playground would open in 2017 or early 2018. But, as poet Robert Burns once wrote, "The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley."  

Snow, ice, flooding, the MTA taking longer with the South Ferry subway station than it currently anticipates? anything could happen.

 - Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Four- to six-foot-tall berms have been proposed for Battery Park. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)