On the morning of September 11th, Huntley Gill brought his 70-year-old retired fireboat, the John J. Harvey, to Battery Park City. The Harvey acted as a floating fire hydrant until water pressure was restored to the area. Revisiting the scene, this time in a friend's 30-foot whale boat, he points to where the Harvey was tied up, behind the World Financial Center.
Huntley Gill: All of those markings along the seawall, that's us!
Amy: Those scrapes and that paint?
Huntley: Yeah, where we had banged up against the concrete for four days.
From the vantage point of a boat, the high, concrete seawall looks forbidding. There are no rubber tires, or fenders, for boats to bump against. There are no anvil-shaped cleats for boats to tie up. There are no ladders for a person to climb down into a boat. There's a fence, though.
Amy: So people had to climb over that cast iron grating…
Huntley: They had to climb over that big, ornamental, lovely railing….it was terrible. And the other point is, we had to get our lines over it, too, because there's nothing to tie up to here. So we put our lines across and tied up to these trees.
Hundreds of other boat crews also improvised. Despite the obstacles, the U-S Coast Guard estimated about one million people were evacuated by boat that day. And, with bridges and tunnels closed, thousands of volunteers and equipment were ferried from New Jersey to the disaster site. Waterfront enthusiasts have long pushed for public access to the water, but Mr. Gill thinks the events of September 11th show there should be access from the water, as well.
Huntley Gill: It's clear that nobody gave any thought to the use of this waterfront for vessels, and they have to.
Architect Stan Eckstut designed the Battery Park City waterfront esplanade. He says Huntley Gill is right.
Stan Eckstut: One, we didn't know a lot about water activity at the time. The ferries were not operating. I don't think there were a lot of entrepreneurs who had a lot of vessels in the water who were even approaching the city about looking for docking and servicing. I think we were totally consumed with the land side, and didn't think we could do anything with the bulkheads, and I don't think we tried.
While Mr. Eckstut designed a North Cove and a South Cove for Battery Park City, only the North Cove allows boats. He thinks it should be re-designed to allow for bigger ships, and more maritime activity and services.
Stan Eckstut: I don't know the answer, but the key to the North Cove is, figure out what's in the water first. Then the land around it might have to be reinvented.
James Gill, chairman of the Battery Park City Authority, says currently, there are no plans to re-configure the coves, or to add emergency amenities, such as cleats, fenders or gates along the esplanade's seawall.
James Gill: What happened here was that about 50-thousand people, including children, were successfully evacuated without a fatality and without a serious injury. (Laughs) So, it seemed to work pretty well that day.
Advocates and officials of the Hudson River Park, which is now under construction in TriBeCa, also believe no major design changes are necessary. But Carter Craft, with the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, says major changes aren't the point. He thinks what's needed are small changes that will give the waterfront more flexibility….allowing it to act more like a seam between the land and the water, and less like an edge.
Carter Craft: It's just small amenities, and they're not even amenities, they're waterfront design elements -- bollards, tie-ups, fendering -- so that, God forbid, if another event like this happens, we'll be better prepared for it than we were this time.
Planned or not, some changes are already altering the waterfront.
With the loss of the PATH trains into Lower Manhattan, New York Waterway ferry service has doubled, and a new terminal has been set up in Battery Park.
And Pier 25, near Stuyvesant High School -- part of the Hudson River Park -- is currently a loading area for barges taking debris from the World Trade Center to Fresh Kills landfill. Eliot Sander, co-chair of the Empire State Transportation Alliance, says the waterfront cannot be overlooked as city planners decide how to rebuild and revitalize Lower Manhattan.
Eliot Sander: The events of 9-11, and post 9-11, really have the potential of creating a major paradigm shift, which was beginning to take place beforehand to really, in the 21st Century, dramatically increasing water as a means of New York to both get to work, and to recreate.
Meanwhile, one group, the Sandy Hook Pilots Association, is not waiting for landlubbers to make emergency plans for access to the waterfront. The Association is drafting a port security and evacuation plan to present to city, state and federal officials early next year. For WNYC, I'm Amy Eddings.