Difficult Hunt Continues for a Battery Park City Dog Run Site

Heated deliberations continued last month about where to build a permanent dog run in Battery Park City. But no site was settled on.

At the end of the month, a committee of Community Board 1 members, residents of the Gateway Plaza complex, and representatives of the Battery Park City Authority and Parks Conservancy were still looking for alternatives to an Authority proposal to place a 4,000-square-foot dog run on Monsignor Kowsky Plaza (formerly Pumphouse Plaza) just north of Gateway. A meeting was scheduled for May 2 to try to resolve the issue.

The year-and-a-half-old proposal to for a canine playground on the plaza, which in March seemed ready to move forward, came under scrutiny after some Gateway residents objected.

The residents angrily criticized the plan at a heated meeting of CB1’s Battery Park City Committee on April 2. They said they were concerned about noise and the proximity of the site to a toddler playground.

"You can’t put this under people’s windows," said Fran Miller, whose fifth-floor apartment faces the plaza. "When people are talking down there, it reverberates off the water."

"Make no mistake, it will be disruptive to people," said Lita Talarico, another Gateway resident.

A group was formed to work with the Authority and Conservancy to find alternate sites. At subsequent meetings, three options were identified, but none looked promising.

Belvedere Plaza, north of the North Cove marina and next to the Mercantile Exchange, was reportedly nixed by the Authority.

The Maze, east of the marina and next to Oval Park, is on land owned by Brookfield Properties. And a site at South End Avenue and Albany Street, next to Foxhounds restaurant, is probably too small and is also under Brookfield’s control.

"We asked the Conservancy to go back and think a little harder," said Anthony Notaro, chair of the Battery Park City Committee. The group also asked Tim Carey, the Authority’s president, to speak to Brookfield about using its property.

The Authority and the dog run’s designer, Claire Weisz, were also exploring ways to reconfigure the Kowsky Plaza site to address residents’ concerns. Weisz said that trees and other landscape elements could provide a sufficient sound buffer.

There are now two temporary dog runs in Battery Park City, but both are on sites earmarked for development.