Nearly a Year Late, Collect Pond Park May Finally Open Next Month

The $4.6 million construction of Collect Pond Park, an entire makeover of the drab concrete plaza between Centre and Lafayette Streets situated next to the New York State Supreme Court Building, was due for completion at the end of last year. It is now expected to be finished next month, at the earliest.

Defective waterproof sheeting had been installed and must be replaced in what is to be the park's centerpiece, a 100-foot-long reflecting pond, said Lawrence Mauro, the city Parks Department's project manager for Lower Manhattan. The sheeting is meant to protect the park and prevent flooding of a basement of the nearby courts.

“The contractor is being especially cautious in that replacement, of course, [because] they don’t want the problem to reoccur,” Mauro recently told Community Board 1’s Seaport-Civic Center Committee. “We’re also having the manufacturer’s representative come in and inspect the re-installation of the waterproofing at each step—so, hopefully, it will not fail.”

The waterproofing must be put in before the park’s tile surface can be installed, a process that needs to be finished before cold weather sets in, Mauro said.

Once completed, the pond will be surrounded by benches, plantings and trees. A spray shower for children is expected to be up and running next spring.

The park is named after the spring-fed pond that existed there in the city's early years, providing residents with most of their drinking water. The pond became so polluted that it was drained in 1805. The area was eventually known as “Paradise Park,” named for Paradise Square, which replaced Collect Pond in the 1830s. In the 1950s, it was turned into a parking lot.