Grand Plan for Park in Holland Tunnel Rotary Gets a Leafy Head Start

Volunteers plant an oak outside the Holland Tunnel Rotary on Laight Street. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

A dream is taking root at the Holland Tunnel Rotary. 

For the past few years, architects Dasha Khapalova, 39, and Peter Ballman, 44, have been on a mission to create a new park—they call it Rotary Park—in the middle of the Holland Tunnel Rotary.  As quixotic as that may sound, the tenacious couple, who are married and teach at Cornell University, took a first greening step on Saturday with the planting of trees around the rotary.

“It’s a little bit of a breaking ground on the site. It’s doing something physical here,” Khapalova said, as volunteers shoveled dirt into the tree pit of a new oak outside the rotary on Laight Street, one of 12 trees to be planted around and near the rotary on Laight, Varick and Hudson Streets. (They also added two planters on Hudson Street, each with a crape myrtle and petunias.) “While the park isn’t here yet, [the area] is improving, which is what we’re trying to do in the short term,” Khapalova noted. “Make people see the space as not just populated by traffic, but also populated by people.”

Khapalova called the project a “trial run” to prove they can work together with both residents and bureaucracy, the city Parks Department and Port Authority in particular. “It shows that we can get something done,” she said.

The tree project began with Jared Sheer, who heads the neighborhood group Friends of St. John’s Park, named for the gated residential green space that occupied the site in the early-to mid-1800s. During the pandemic, he said, some trees had died and the area around the rotary “was starting to look a little unloved.” Stymied in his efforts to get the city to plant new trees, Sheer reached out to Khapalova and Ballman, “remembering they had this great plan for the rotary and realizing there was some common interest that would allow us to give them a platform for their project, but also maybe get some movement on beautifying these blocks a bit,” he said.

The city Parks Department’s Tree Time helped put together a planting plan. Most of the trees are on Port Authority property and the agency not only granted access but chipped in $3,500 of the $12,000 cost of the trees. Friends of St. John’s Park paid for the rest.

“We ended up rallying eight buildings in the neighborhood to make a contribution and make this a reality,” Sheer said. “Prior, I don’t think anyone was talking to each other and now here are eight buildings connected and the hope is we’ll tackle other issues like some of the traffic on Hudson. It’s just an opportunity to connect.”

Christopher Lee, the Port Authority’s manager of external relations, said the agency hopes Rotary Park becomes a forum for discussion about how “this very important piece of infrastructure, which occupies an enormous amount of open space, can become an asset to this neighborhood, and to the city at large.” 

In an email statement, a Port Authority spokesman said the agency “believes that with the right design, funding, and partnerships, this space could have great potential in the future. Unfortunately, at this time, the Port Authority cannot consider a project of this scale without clear funding sources and ensuring continuity of operations in and around the Holland Tunnel.”

While keeping their sights on the distant goal of Rotary Park, the architects have short-term objectives such as art installations and construction of a small playground. To help, they’ve added partners, including Tribeca Community School, New York Academy of Art, Play:groundNYC, and Spring Studios.

“We’re trying to bring on partners who have areas of expertise that’s embedded in the community but are outside of our wheelhouse to help make this project grow,” Ballman said. 

The Rotary Park plan calls for a 70,000-square-feet sunken park about 20 feet below street level, with another 20,000-square-feet of arcade space beneath the roadway. All of it could be programmed in many different ways, they say, from a sculpture garden and ice skating rink to a bathhouse and farmer’s market.

“You look at the amount of space,” Ballman said. “That’s kind of the front door of Tribeca right there, where Tribeca touches Canal Street. So there is a potential here to be more than a neighborhood park, but to be a connection park in the same way that Washington Square Park is a connection park between different neighborhoods.”

“Why not here?” Khapalova added. “That is the question.”