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The city required [Donald J. Trump] to turn over the land and pay for the $12 million in improvements in return for letting him and his investors raise 16 buildings along the Hudson between 59th and 72nd Sts. Three of his Trump Place buildings are already up just east of the new park. He is required to extend the park south - at a total cost of $70 million - as each planned building rises.
When completed in the next few weeks, the park will be deeded over to the city's Parks and Recreation Department. Trump and his investors will continue to pay for maintenance, said Trump/New World project manager Joseph Curcio.
Caption: PHOTOS: SUSAN WATTS; GRAPHIC: JIM WILLIS DAILY NEWSThe latest addition to New Yorks waterfront property is so new, plastic still covers the benches in Donald Trumps four-block-long addition to Riverside Park. The elevated West Side Highway overshadows the lush greenery (r.) of the public park, leading to a renewed call by Trump to take it down.
It's not every day that 8 acres of pristine, waterfront parkland get added to the overstressed isle of Manhattan.
But that's what New Yorkers will find along the Hudson River sometime next month, and it's all thanks to a deal the city made with an unlikely source: Donald J. Trump, megadeveloper.
Riverside Park South - a four-block-long addition to Riverside Park that will run from 68th to 72nd Sts., complete with basketball courts, handball courts and a 750-foot pier over the river - is set to open within weeks.
"It really is a fantastic park," Trump gushed. "It's one of the few places in the city that will allow people to go right down to the water and, with the new pier, even over the water."
The city required Trump to turn over the land and pay for the $12 million in improvements in return for letting him and his investors raise 16 buildings along the Hudson between 59th and 72nd Sts. Three of his Trump Place buildings are already up just east of the new park. He is required to extend the park south - at a total cost of $70 million - as each planned building rises.
Trump's gated 75 acres had long been the last major gap preventing walkers and bikers from enjoying a continuous, protected path along much of the Hudson.
But when the new park opens next month - and the state simultaneously completes another missing link between 55th and 59th Sts. - joggers and bikers will enjoy a protected corridor from Battery Park to 125th St.
The path will extend through that section of Trump's property that remains unfinished, between 59th and 68th Sts.
"It's the last bead of a green, emerald necklace along the Hudson," said Thomas Balsley, the landscape architect who designed Trump's new park. "Although we'd like to think of it as one of the major gems, not just a bead."
Workers were busy putting the finishing touches on the new park last week, when the Daily News was granted a first look. Benches were still covered in plastic, and crews were still installing lights.
But the park already includes three full-length basketball courts, two handball courts, an open field surrounded by 40 newly planted oaks and a roller-skating area. Visitors will be able to enter along the river or by granite staircases being built at W. 68th St. and W. 72nd St.
The path along the river is punctuated by a circular plaza at W. 70th St. and, of course, the pier, which offers a whole new view of the city. From its outermost point, visitors can spot Riverside Church to the north, the Statue of Liberty to the south and just about everything in between. New Jersey seems a stone's throw away.
Plans also call for refurbishing a rusting neighboring pier - once used to transfer Penn Central rail cars from river barges to land - as a historic landmark. A caf will round out the amenities.
Looming above it all, like a great steel roof, is the elevated West Side Highway. The five-story-high roadway casts a shadow over much of the park, but a fresh coat of paint supplied by the state has given the roadway's underside a clean look.
When completed in the next few weeks, the park will be deeded over to the city's Parks and Recreation Department. Trump and his investors will continue to pay for maintenance, said Trump/New World project manager Joseph Curcio.
"All I can say is, it's about time," said Cy Adler, president of Shorewalkers, a group dedicated to opening up New York's waterfront that has tussled with Trump for years over Riverside South. "I have always felt that walkers should have the right of innocent passage through that area."
The park's completion will close another chapter in the saga of what has long been one of the city's most contentious pieces of property. Trump spent some 15 years trying to develop the area - at one time even suggesting it as a site for the world's tallest structure - before he gained approval for the 16-building plan in 1992.
He continues to fight for one last improvement: the burying of the elevated highway, a project that some have estimated would cost up to $256 million in taxpayer dollars.
"Every time we open a new building, you have more and more clamoring for the highway to come down," said Trump, who then vowed, "It will come down."
Caption: PHOTOS: SUSAN WATTS; GRAPHIC: JIM WILLIS DAILY NEWSThe latest addition to New Yorks waterfront property is so new, plastic still covers the benches in Donald Trumps four-block-long addition to Riverside Park. The elevated West Side Highway overshadows the lush greenery (r.) of the public park, leading to a renewed call by Trump to take it down.
Copyright Daily News, L.P. Sep 12, 2000