Designing Public Spaces
“Colgate Clock Park”
Table of Contents Project Context
4
Design Concepts
13
Site Plan
16
- Layout
17
- Multipurpose Spaces
23
- Colgate Clock
25
- Seating
29
- Food Truck Area
32
- Dog Park
33
- Lawn
35
- Sustainability
37
- Vegetation
43
10 Hudson Street, Jersey City
*Captured with Google Earth
Project Context Located on the Jersey City waterfront sits 10 Hudson Street. Formerly the site of a coast guard station, the lot now sits abandoned and fenced off, locked in a custody battle between the state and city in which the former wants to sell it off to the highest bidder and the latter seeks to develop it into a park.
I wasn’t aware of any of this, however, when I first started my senior project. As a lifelong resident of Jersey City, I’ve watched my neighborhood change around me as new buildings spring up and undeveloped areas transform. However, despite all these changes, 10 Hudson St. remains almost untouched. The only exception to this being the restoration of the historic Colgate Clock. A local landmark, it stands in front of 10 Hudson St, facing the New York City skyline. In 1908, it was mounted on the roof of a Colgate warehouse just a couple blocks north of where it now stands, and was considered at the time the largest clock in the world. A couple years ago, the clock was refurbished with LED lights, and seating was installed in front.
Right: A group of cyclists resting in front of the Colgate Clock at night, enjoying the view of the skyline across the Hudson River.
10 Hudson Street’s location is a prime spot for a park or other recreational area. It’s a highly dense area, surrounded by residential high rises and office buildings. Myself and so many others pass by it every day on their way to work or school in the city due to it being right on the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway, which has easy access to the Exchange Place Path Station and the Paulus Hook Ferry Terminal. The walkway is also a popular place to take a walk or a bike ride, and the site’s location is right in the middle of of this path.
Portion of the waterfront walkway, highlighted in yellow. Note the blue transit symbols in close proximity to the lot.
The aforementioned alone makes this location a great spot for a park. What pushes this over the top, however, is the light rail station not even a block away (and another one a couple blocks north), making this a potential Transit Oriented Development (TOD); a term used to describe pedestrian-oriented areas centered around transit.* There are also several restaurants and businesses nearby counted on to drive traffic to the area.
Essex Street Light Rail Station
*More information about TODs can be found at tod.org
which can be
Stakeholders I identified several stakeholders for this project: -
State of New Jersey -
Aims to sell the lot to be developed for an estimated 150 million dollars.
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Jersey City -
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Wants to develop the site into a community resource.
Goldman Sachs -
Office building next door to the site.
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Owns the land the Colgate Clock stands on, may have some partial ownership claim to the undeveloped site.
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Would most likely prefer land to be developed for a park that would benefit it’s employees or one that does not attract children.
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Residents -
Those who live in close proximity or less than a half mile walk from the site would benefit most from it.
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Neighborhood Associations or Historic Societies -
There are several in the area, and most likely have some influence in the decision making process.
Neighborhood Waterfront Parks -
Nearby Morris Canal Park: poorly maintained “passive park” which has plans to be redeveloped.
Dog Parks -
The Paulus Hook area is home to a lot of dog owners.
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There is no dog park located within a fifteen minute walk to the site, leaving many residents without easy access to one.
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Morris Canal Park is used by residents to let dogs off the leash. However, this is prohibited by the park, and at least some residents in the area are uncomfortable using the park with so many dogs running around, especially those with small children.
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The Colgate Clock has a large space beneath it, which is used sometimes for dogs to be let off the leash and play. This has caused a lot of litter (dog waste bags, etc).
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The frequent use of public spaces as makeshift dog parks points to a neighborhood need for a formalized safe one.
Pollinator / Community / Educational Gardens -
None within a mile.
Current city plan for nearby Morris Canal Park:
Neighborhood Nearby Schools -
Waterfront Montessori, Cornelia F Bradford Elementary School, and Learning Ladders Preschool.
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High School: Saint Peter’s Prep. Students commonly use the nearby light rail stations.
Playgrounds -
General Nathanael Greene Park at Essex St Light Rail Station, a block away.
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Full playground with adjoining basketball courts.
Food -
Weekly Farmer’s Market in front of Morris Canal Park
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Pharmacy and Grocery Store in vicinity.
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Several existing restaurants such as Krispy Pizza, Yaso, and Semicolon Cafe.
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Food Trucks along the road near Exchange Place, where there are many office buildings.
Neighborhood Sports -
Basketball courts at Nathanael Greene Park; football field at Saint Peter’s Prep.
Water Access -
Manhattan Yacht Club
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Staircase down to edge of water near site (part of waterfront walkway development). People like to sit on the rocks or on the stairs by the water and read a book or do work on a laptop.
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Morris Canal Park is a peninsula with access to water and a rocky “beach”.
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Paddleboards and kayaks are sometimes used in the above areas.
Design Concepts To prepare myself and achieve a better understanding of cities and urban design, I read Happy City by Charles Montgomery, Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space by Jan Gehl, and portions of The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs and How to Study Public Life by Jan Gehl. I also watched William H. Whyte’s documentary The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.
Design Concepts A couple of the questions I considered to guide my design.
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How can I make the spaces in the park human-centered and pedestrian scaled?
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How can I design to invite rather than isolate?
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What can I do to accommodate different amounts of time spent outdoors in different seasons and weather conditions?
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Where can I create natural secondary seating* and places to rest or lean against?
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How can I create multifunctional spaces to make the park more vibrant, interesting, useful, and eventful?
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How do I balance the natural way people move about in a space with aesthetics?
*Secondary seating refers to informal or unconventional places to sit, such as fences or the edges of fountains. It’s important to have the right balance between these and regular benches or chairs to help help minimize the ‘ghost town’ look of too many empty benches or chairs on the off-seasons.
Site Plan
A general map of the park design. Details like benches and tables not shown. Green lines represent low hedges
Park Paths and Layout Waterfront Walkway -
The new addition to the walkway connects the two walkways along the water, creating the experience of having an uninterrupted walk or bike ride along the Hudson river.
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Thigmotaxis is the natural human preference to be on the edge of spaces. This arises from a desire to have your back protected rather than be exposed in a very open space. This phenomenon can be seen when we examine how older, narrower, streets are more inviting than wide, car-centered ones. This concept can also be applied to other public spaces. In large plazas, people like to stay at the edges, and observe what’s happening in the middle.
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In designing the space for the walkway, I was mindful of how wide I was making the path. If the path is too wide, especially with the wide expanse of the river on one side, it can create an uncomfortable experience for the pedestrian. However, the path also can’t be too narrow because cyclists and pedestrians both need to be able to move about with ease and allow space for benches.
Difference in wide and narrow streets. Above: Boston. Below: Washington DC
An example of urban edges from Jan Gehl’s “Life Between Buildings”.
Park Paths and Layout Waterfront Walkway -
The concept of thigmotaxis can be applied here. The walkway has the river on one side, and an open part of the park on the other. This creates the danger of having too open of a space and making the path unpleasant to spend time in. To fix this problem, a tree border can be placed on the park-side of the path, making the path an edge to the wide expanse of the river. The trees also provide shade on a hot summer day and shelter for the park from strong winds.
Park Entrances -
The main entrance to the park is on the northwest corner of the site, and is marked by two trees. This way, the park can be seen from passing light rail trams, people getting off the light rail, and people leaving the nearby pharmacy. Having this direct look into what’s going on in the park invites people to come in.
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Entrance to the park isn’t limited to here. There are no gates, and with the exception of some landscaping, nothing really blocks anyone from entering, making the park more easy to access.
Park Paths and Layout Main Interior Path -
It’s main purpose is to connect the main entrance with the elements under the Colgate Clock. It also connects to the dog park and the lawn.
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The bend in the main path makes the walk seem shorter because it breaks the trip up into sections and blocks the destination from direct view.
Dog Park -
The dog park is located on the Northeast side. It’s location ensures minimal noise disruptions. It’s important to keep it away from where people are going to be doing the most walking so that conversations can still be easily held.
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Waterfront Walkway Multipurpose Space Colgate Clock Parking Lot / Food Truck Area Dog Park Lawn
Multipurpose Spaces Having multifunctional spaces are important for a city. Not only do they allow for multiple activities to happen in a space at once or create usability for different times of the day, but they also contribute to citizen’s happiness and wellbeing by creating more vibrant and interesting spaces. When a variety of activities happen in the same space, they can feed off each other and become richer. The left / West paved portion of the park is intended to function like this . An incomplete list of some built-in features and possible uses: Chess Tables Can be used for dining purposes and other games as well.
Interactive Sidewalks Permanent games for children such as hopscotch: a flat playground.
Performances Space for musicians to play live music oriented towards the lawn so that people can sit and enjoy. Includes a power source.
Colgate Clock As described in the context of this project, the Colgate Clock has some historical importance to the area. Its initial purpose was to serve the needs of the people across the water by telling the time. Currently, it doesn’t do much for the community around it. While it’s nice to look at from the front, it’s pretty much useless from the back and doesn’t really have any type of functionality. More could be done to transform the clock to benefit the neighborhood while still preserving its historical importance.
The Back The back of the clock has a ladder and a power box, making it have a purely functional purpose that shouldn’t be disturbed. Some minimal paint can freshen up the back’s appearance while still retaining the industrial, historical feel of the clock. However, not much should be done to not take away from the main visual feature of the area, which is the skyline. Trees can be planted to cover some of the back of the sign attached to the front, and wisteria can even be incorporated to hang off a trellis-like structure towards the base.
Colgate Clock The Underside Because the clock doesn’t really have an existing ceiling, and the support beams are pretty high up, the underside of the clock is where a lot of utilization can happen. The terrain is a bit uneven so it would have to be leveled, but this space underneath the clock can be transformed into a sheltered area with picnic-style tables. People can sit here and work or read a book with the skyline in the background. I assume it would also be easy to include a power source to charge a laptop or phone because electricity is used to power the lights on the clock. To provide extra shelter, an actual ceiling made of wood or steel (wood would most likely look more inviting but steel will match the clock better) can be attached to the existing horizontal support beams. The floor directly under the clock would also be paved to create a more “formal” experience. Additionally, trees to the North side can block any noise from the nearby dog park.
Seating Any park requires seating, but it’s important to be careful about where places for sitting are placed. One of the most important factors to consider is whether seating is placed along ‘spatial boundaries’. People prefer to sit in niches or have their backs protected rather than sit in the middle of a space, totally exposed. Places with a lot of free standing furniture floating about typically look empty because they are badly placed and uncomfortable. This is especially true in winter or during bad weather when there are less people out because these qualities are exacerbated by underuse of the park.
There are two main types of seating: primary and secondary seating. Primary seating consists of furniture like benches and chairs which are located in the best possible seating positions. Secondary seating acts as a supplementary and could be anything from a fence, a stairway, a standpipe, or the edge of a fountain. The right balance between these can help prevent a space look empty while still providing an adequate amount of seating during peak hours.
An example of secondary seating
Seating Bench orientation also matters. People like to sit in places where they can people watch: along paths or on the edges of plazas. Benches that are placed back to back or across from each other are sometimes too isolating or can feel like an invasion of personal space, so benches that are placed at angle to each other usually work best (depending on the context).
In the design of the park, benches line the waterfront walkway in tree niches to provide slightly recessed seating that still provides a view to the Hudson and foot traffic. Benches are also placed inside the dog park, in the multipurpose area, and along some hedge-lined interior paths. Lounge chairs on the lawn, seating at tables, and benches in the paved multipurpose area are all movable to allow users to decide where they want to sit.
For secondary seating, the fountain in the lawn provides ledge-seating so that people can choose whether they want to sit facing the fountain or not. Rocks near the dog parks can allow people to sit and observe what’s
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Food Truck Area 10 Hudson Street is located around a lot of a lot of office buildings, and food trucks sometimes park in the streets between these buildings. A formalized place for the food trucks to park with a nice seating area would be beneficial to the office workers in the area, as well as neighborhood residents. People commuting to and from work along this route could benefit from this as well. On the north border of the park is a parking lot. It’s unclear whether this belongs to Goldman Sachs (which sits adjacent to it) or the city, but on Google Maps it’s labeled as a part of Essex St. Transforming the bottom half of it for parking for food trucks and the like wouldn’t be a huge parking space loss as there are parking in nearby buildings and it would only be a loss of about twelve units. Food trucks can occupy this space during lunch hours, around midday, and then towards the evening other vehicles like ice cream trucks can be an amenity to a different demographic of people. The existing small sliver of sidewalk can be considerably widened to accommodate tables and movable chairs for seating, and trees can provide some natural shade without the need for umbrellas. Additionally, the sidewalk can be lined with bollards not just for safety concerns, but also for a convenient place to lean against.
Dog Park The dog park is an element of the park that is probably most needed in the community. As described in the context of this project, the lack of dog amenities is made obvious by the places in which dog owners decide to let their dogs off the leash.
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The dog park is divided into two sections, for small and large dogs with a double gate system.
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Gate to the dog park is located on an interior path.
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There is a small water fountain outside the dog park where people can fill up a bottle. It’s possible that the spout could be detachable, like a hose, so dogs could easily drink from it.
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Turf for the surface of the dog park so it wouldn’t be muddy.
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Shade provided by trees, and benches to rest on inside.
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Seating outside to the dog park to look in and observe.
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Dog waste bag dispenser and waste basket on the outside of the enclosure.
Dog park in Newport, Jersey City
Lawn The southern half of the site, above the Waterfront walkway, is dedicated to a lawn.
Open Space This space is largely open, so that various activities can happen here. However, to avoid a situation in which nobody wants to use it because of its openness, there are clumps of flowering shrubs peppered throughout the space. These clumps consist of a shrub like viburnum, for example, and several other elements like a couple rocks or a tree to lean against. Benches are placed along these groups to create a well-defined place to rest.
Fountain A fountain in the middle of the lawn is an attraction and draws people into the lawn area. Seating on the ledge of the fountain gives users the option of sitting facing towards the fountain or outwards. Because of this, the water is made accessible to play with or dip a hand in. Having water that is interactive can give a space life and make it feel comfortable; water that is blocked off can send a hostile message that this space isn’t for you.
Fountain at Washington Square Park
Sustainability 10 Hudson Street is located in a Flood zone, making it imperative to have flood protection on site.
Bioswales and Rain Gardens Increase infiltration and convey water to a different location.
Sustainability Permeable Pavement A porous surface that catches water and stores it in an underground reservoir. The water will then slowly infiltrate into the soil. This pavement can be used on all the interior path and pavement except for the Waterfront walkway which should remain uniform with the existing sections.
Contamination and Pollution It’s also worth noting that the site currently has chromate contamination and groundwater contamination. The site needs to be remediated before anything can happen.
Vegetation
Greenery is a very important part of people’s wellbeing. Studies have shown that even a picture of a tree in someone’s place of work can have a massive impact on job performance and happiness*. Trees also provide shade and shelter, and are best planted in groves rather than isolated locations.
The site’s location right on the waterfront makes it highly susceptible to strong winds. Trees like swamp white oak and arborvitae are excellent windbreakers and can help protect people using the park from the elements. Also listed here are some examples of shrubs and flowering bushes that can be used in the landscaping of the park. Having a wide variety of plants can create pollinator gardens, as well as provide an opportunity for education about different flora. Included in the list are several plants native to New Jersey.
*According to “Happy City” by Charles Montgomery
Vegetation
Swamp white oak tree
Weeping willow tree
Green Giant Arborvitae
Forsythia
St. John’s Wort
Potentilla
Viburnum
Golden Ticket Privet
Spirea
Vegetation
Wisteria
Hydrangea
Lilac
Southern Arrowwood
Ruby Spice Summersweet
Boxwood
Future When I started this project, I thought six weeks would be more than enough time to not only complete my plan of this park but also create artistic representations of it’s features. However, I wasn’t able to do as much as I had originally planned. Going forward, I want to continue working on this project, get more feedback from neighbors, do more research, improve my plans, and possibly present it to a neighborhood association so that it would be possible for this plan to come to fruition some time in the future. Thank you for reading!
