City Gives Detailed Preview of West Thames Pedestrian Bridge
The city and its architects revealed revised, detailed renderings of the West Thames Street Pedestrian Bridge that will span West Street, linking Battery Park City to the Financial District. The bridge, expected to be completed by late 2016, will have a double lenticular truss (two joined parabolic forms) and be accessible by stairs and elevators on each end.
The latest images, presented last month to the city’s Public Design Commission for review, show a light-grey, steel-and-concrete bridge covered by a glass roof and enclosed with mesh material. At night, the bridge will glow with blue LED lighting.
“The intent is that this is a very light, elegant structure,” said WXY Architecture + Urban Design architect Claire Weisz, who presented the latest design to Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee. The glass covering, she added, is meant to “create a sense of sky.” Rainwater from the roof will go into a bioswale, a sloped area in the middle of the structure that will transport it into a nearby planting median on West Street.
The bridge’s design is “well within budget,” Matt Best, a city program manager on the project, told the CB1 committee. The project will be paid for with federal funds through the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and Battery Park City Authority. “If there is an overage,” he added, “that’s still to be worked out in the next round of discussion.”
The committee, while applauding the project, voiced concern about the durability of the bridge’s elevators, since the elevators on other West Street bridges in the area have often broken down.
“We’re aware of your concerns,” Qi Ye of Weidlinger Associates, the bridge’s joint designer, told the committee, “and we’re trying to find ways to improve the performance of elevators.” The BPCA, Best noted, will maintain the elevators. Larger repairs will be done by the city Department of Transportation.
The bridge will replace one at Rector Street, which will be dismantled. Final plans are expected by June, and work is due to begin in the fall of 2014.