BPC Dog Run Plan Moves Forward

By Ronald Drenger

Construction will soon begin on permanent ballfields in Battery Park City, but it looks like the neighborhood’s children are not the only ones who will be getting a new play area. A 4,000-square-foot dog run is in the works for central BPC, and the plan has taken a significant step forward.

At its March 5 meeting, Community Board 1’s BPC Committee gave the go-ahead to the BPC Parks Conservancy to design a dog run for the western side of Monsignor Kowsky Plaza, just north of the Gateway Plaza complex’s 500 building.

The BPC Authority says it hasn’t made a final decision about placing pooches on the plaza, but the idea for a dog run there has been discussed for over a year and the project appears headed for approval.

The proposal was presented a year ago to Community Board 1 and to BPC residents and there were few objections, although some Gateway tenants raised concerns about noise, lights and airborne dog allergens.
Claire Weisz, of Weisz +Yoes Architecture, who will design the canine play area, said at last week's meeting that allergen studies done by the Authority at dog runs in southern BPC and in other city neighborhoods showed no detectable levels of airborne dog allergens.

She also said that lighting will be aimed at the ground, that there will be "no excessive lighting at night," and that shrubs, trees and other landscape elements will be used to muffle sound from the dog run. Representatives of the Authority and the Parks Conservancy have said that other dog runs next to residential buildings in Battery Park City have generated only a couple of noise complaints over many years.

"Off-leash dogs bark a lot less than on-leash dogs," said Jeff Galloway, a leader of the BPC Dog Owners’ Association. Before Sept. 11, the association estimated that there were 1,000 dogs in BPC, with about 400 in Gateway alone.

Weisz will consult with a group of BPC dog owners and Gateway residents—including dog run critics—being organized by Linda Belfer, president of Gateway’s tenant association. The architect said she hopes to meet the group for the first time by the end of this month. The issue will also be discussed at the Gateway tenant association’s annual meeting on March 26.

Monsignor Kowsky Plaza, formerly called Pumphouse Plaza, is the roof of an underground water pumping station that used to supply heating and cooling water to the World Trade Center, and it has to be ripped up anyway for waterproofing and other work. The work was supposed to begin last fall and be finished this spring but was put off because of the terrorist attack.

Construction, including creation of the dog run, if it’s approved, is now scheduled to begin in October and to be completed during the winter, according to Weisz.

It would be BPC’s first officially designated, "permanent" dog run. The dog run now on Third Place in the southern neighborhood is on a site slated for development and a dog run further north is on a construction site.
Vince McGowan, assistant director of the BPC Parks Conservancy, told the CB1 committee that another dog run was being planned for Marginal Street, on the south side of West Thames Street, on a site that used to be a parking lot and is now a staging area for World Trade Center cleanup work.