New BPC Plaza: Space for Tots, Dogs and Relaxation by Barry Owens On a bitterly cold morning last month, architect Claire Weisz and her partner Mark Yoes sat down on a bench in Monsignor Kowsky Plaza and declared themselves satisfied. The pair are the designers behind the renovation of the plaza at the foot of Liberty Street just north of the 500 building of the Gateway Plaza residential complex. The plaza was set to reopen this month. The benches, which they were testing to determine the most comfortable height, were to be installed on either side of long L-shaped rows of planters that now divide the plaza from a playground and a cordoned-off dog run-all in the shade of a new, sharply angled hardwood trellis. "The space feels good," said Weisz. "Before, it didn't feel like a space at all." Before, the plaza had been little more than the roof of an underground water pumping station that supplied heating and cooling water to the World Trade Center. The pumping station is still there, but its hatches have been disguised by paving stones that now cover the length of the plaza. Vents that once blocked access to the Hudson River from the plaza's west side have been lowered. When the fence around the construction site comes down, there will be a straight path through the plaza from Liberty Street to the river. "The idea was to do something with the space to make it more user friendly," said Yoes. Perhaps the "The idea was to do something with the space to make it more user friendly," said Yoes. Perhaps the most anticipated feature of the plaza is the dog run. Community Board 1 member Jeff Galloway, a dog owner and Battery Park City resident, last month proposed naming the dog run "Serius," after the lone rescue dog killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. The reconfigured plaza also features new play equipment for toddlers, including a water table and sand in the play pit. Plants, including bamboo and trees in the planters and wisteria in the trellis, will be put in starting in May, Weisz said. "Despite the fact that we are not on soil, not even close to soil, we wanted to add a lot more green," she said. In the meantime, Weisz and Yoes were content with their views of wet concrete, construction debris, and workers climbing through the trellis overhead. "Only an architect," Weisz remarked, "would sit on a park bench on a day like this, look around here and say, 'It's going to be wonderful.'"