A Hero's Reception for Battery Park City's Deposed Parks Chief

Former Battery Parks City Parks Conservancy executive director Tessa Huxley addresses a crowd of admirers at the Battery Park City Block Party on Sunday, Sept. 20. "It's difficult to say much, given how long I've been associated with this community," Huxley said. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

In a brief but emotional homecoming, Tessa Huxley returned to Battery Park City on Sunday for a hero's welcome.

The former long-time director of the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy, recently forced out of her position in a highly controversial move by the Battery Park City Authority, was met with hugs and showered with words of gratitude at the neighborhood’s annual block party. Huxley was there to receive an award for her 27 years of stewardship of the conservancy's 36 acres of pristinely maintained parks.

Speaking publicly for the first time since her dismissal, Huxley expressed appreciation for being allowed to begin creating what she called the “soul” for Battery Park City, “because there wasn’t one yet.” That was 1988, when most of Battery Park City was still unbuilt, she noted.

“There needed to be connective tissue and the parks were going to be that tissue,” Huxley told the audience. “And it’s been my privilege to help birth that and to figure out all the details.”

Huxley reserved her biggest thanks—and hope for the park’s future—for her former staff.

“I love them all dearly,” she said, fighting back tears. “And I ask you to please support them going forward because it’s a complicated process and we all need to do it together.”

Huxley’s words followed the praises of elected officials and community leaders, who called her a person of “vision, leadership and iron will” (state Sen. Daniel Squadron), “the change agent who made Battery Park City so beautiful" (Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer), and one who “brings nurturing to all that she does” (Community Board 1 Chair Catherine McVay Hughes).

“We need you in the rest of the city,” said Councilwoman Margaret Chin, “so you’re not done.”

After the ceremony, Huxley, 62, told the Trib that she is putting off deciding her future until next January. “This was my life,” she said, then adding, “I have to clear my brain. It’s very hard not to think, ‘My God, where are the bulbs?’ You just have to let it go and that’s hard.”