Safety Fears On East River Esplanade As Promised Cameras Never Appear

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A confluence of issues are sparking safety concerns on the East River Esplanade, prompting scrutiny of its lack of integration with the city's 311 system and the security cameras that were promised years ago but have yet to be installed.

Like most of the Upper East Side, the nine-mile riverfront walkway is typically safe. Still, "the Esplanade does have crime," said Jennifer Ratner, founder of Friends Of The East River Esplanade.

Ratner pointed to an incident last year in which an art installation on the Esplanade was vandalized, as well as the 2015 killing of a police officer on East 120th Street. Further south, advocates have flagged sanitation issues at Andrew Haswell Green Park near East 60th Street, where someone recently cut down several limbs from a fir tree and left cans, toys, tires and clothes strewn about.

Neighbors have found human feces inside Andrew Haswell Green Park on a few recent occasions, according to volunteer Frederica Miller, who noted that some homeless New Yorkers have set up camp nearby.

As worries mount, Esplanade advocates have wondered what happened to the three police-monitored security cameras announced for the Esplanade in October 2018.

Rockefeller University was supposed to pay for two of the cameras, which were to be embedded within its new River Campus buildings and monitor the Esplanade's somewhat isolated southern end. The Hospital for Special Surgery pledged to maintain the third camera on the third floor of its East Wing building at East 71st Street.

Then-City Councilmember Ben Kallos also allocated $160,000 in that year's city budget to build a fiber-optic cable line connecting the cameras to the NYPD's surveillance system.

"We are hoping that the cameras will be piped in right to the 19th Precinct, and the folks at the desk will be able to see it," Kallos said at a 2018 news conference announcing the cameras, adding that nearby hospital employees had had "unfortunate incidents with people" on that stretch of the Esplanade.

Now, the status of those cameras remains murky: a Hospital for Special Surgery spokesperson confirmed to Patch that their camera remained uninstalled, while a Rockefeller spokesperson said its two cameras were up and running, though one was in need of service.

Earlier this month, when Miller asked precinct officials for an update on the cameras, she was told that they would be installed in "one to two years," Miller told Patch. The three-year delay, she was told, stemmed from difficulties installing electrical wiring.

"We looked heavily into that, and there’s so much more than meets the eye with the installation of these cameras, in the way of power systems and stuff," precinct commander Melissa Eager said during a May 3 public meeting, adding that officers would conduct more patrols along the walkway.

Reached for comment by Patch, the NYPD offered a different explanation, saying cameras will be installed "Once construction along the Esplanade is complete" — an apparent reference to either the ongoing extension of the Esplanade below East 61st Street or the new Hospital for Special Surgery building over the FDR Drive.

The Parks Department, which handles the Esplanade's day-to-day operations, said it was unaware of any delays in the cameras' installations.

A Hospital for Special Surgery spokesperson said the institution remained "willing to install the appropriate cabling and power for NYPD’s use for additional security cameras."

Ratner, one of the Esplanade advocates, said the delay was unacceptable, given that more than $100,000 had already been set aside years ago.

"Here’s the money, you had it, it was allocated. It shouldn’t take much longer than that in New York City," Ratner said. "It shouldn't take so much energy on the part of volunteers."

311 poses its own challenge

Along with the cameras, advocates are raising alarms about a separate issue: the Esplanade's disconnectedness from the city's 311 reporting system.

Residents who have used the 311 website to report an issue on the Esplanade have found that it does not exist as a valid location, sparking fears that first responders might have trouble reaching it during a future emergency.

City Councilmember Julie Menin laid out the issues in a letter sent last week to the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, which runs the 311 system, saying her constituents have been unable to report problems like sinkholes and sanitation issues on the Esplanade.

"This broken reporting system is in need of immediate improvement," Menin wrote. "Furthermore, since NYPD security cameras are yet to be installed on large swaths of the Esplanade, the fact that there is no way for residents to pinpoint where incidents occur is of grave concern."

The agency had not responded to Menin's letter by Monday afternoon, a spokesperson said.

This story has been updated with comments from Rockefeller University.

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