Long-Awaited Harlem Waterfront Repairs Start In 2024, City Says

EAST HARLEM, NY — The costly, sorely needed project that will rebuild East Harlem's decaying waterfront is pushing ahead, city officials said this week — though construction will not begin for more than two years.

Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed last January that the city would spend $284 million to rehabilitate the East River Esplanade between East 94th and 124th streets. News of the repairs came only after advocates spent years decrying the state of the walkway, which is rife with potholes and entirely off-limits in some areas, as the Esplanade crumbles into the East River.

The project will also include a full rebuild of the 107th Street Pier, a once-popular gathering place that has been fenced off since 2018 for safety reasons.

Starting last fall, the city began soliciting design proposals for the Esplanade's rebuild, with a submission deadline that ended last month. In a Thursday meeting with Community Board 11, officials revealed a timeline for the project: a winning design will be chosen by March, with construction starting in the fall of 2024.

About $10 million from the state will be added to the city's contribution, bringing the project's cost to $294 million altogether, the city's Economic Development Corporation said in its presentation.

The new pier will also feature a public art piece, to be selected by a committee including community members, according to EDC project manager Meredith Simon-Pearson.

Besides demolishing and rebuilding the pier, the funding covers structural and climate-focused repairs to the Esplanade between East 94th and 107th streets, and 118th to 124th streets. Separately, the Parks Department is planning to repair the Esplanade between East 114th and 117th streets — a three-block stretch riddled with holes that is entirely fenced off, severing the walkway in two.

Still, those plans leave a gap between East 107th and 114th streets — a stretch that, while in comparatively good condition, advocates still hoped would get refurbished.

"We are thrilled that the advocacy has gotten it so far," said Jennifer Ratner, founder of Friends of the East River Esplanade, "but we are disappointed that there is a disjointed nature to it."

The city also has no plans to build restroom facilities on the rebuilt Esplanade or the nearby park between 125th and 132nd streets, which is expected to be finished by 2025 as part of a separate project. That disappointed some advocates, including Ratner, who recalled a visit to the 107th Street Pier early in the campaign for repairs.

"One of the fishermen showed us how they urinated in their fishing buckets because there’s no place to go to the bathroom," she told Patch.

Thursday's meeting also featured a presentation by East River C.R.E.W., a nonprofit that has long run a community rowboat program near East 96th Street, and who asked to be included in the city's planning for the Esplanade's future.

Related coverage:

• East Harlem Pols Praise Esplanade Funding, Demand Quick Repairs
• Crumbling East Harlem Esplanade To Get $284M In Repairs
• East Harlem Waterfront Repairs Languish As Esplanade Crumbles