URBAN SCALE DESIGN the transportation and land use around the area and found that there was a need for a residential development as well as an expansion of the financial core.11 Similar to the DLMA’s idea; they wanted use elevated platforms that would separate vehicular and pedestrian traffic. This caused a major conflict of interest in the development of Battery Park City whereas the City of New York not only owned the land but also regulates the urban developments while having a design development themselves. On the other hand, Nelson Rockefeller had the financial support in developing the land while having legislative authority in the State with his own development in mind. Having different urban designs and policy implications the two public authorities had to struggle for their ideas, leaving the site untouched and nothing built. It took over three years for the City and the State to realize that instead of working against one another they would work out their differences and compromise to teaming up and working together, combining their ideas to propose a much better scheme.12 Within a year, the project’s developed plan was finished and satisfied both the City and the State on their needs. The proposal looked to have new housing, new lands, new jobs, and maybe a new way of urban living proposing Battery Park City as the City of the Future. The new master plan was required to build five million square feet of offices, a five hundred thousand square foot mall, civil facilities including a library, fire stations, police station, and two schools. The plan was also required to build a recreational, cultural, and health center, and finally 14 100 402
apartments that were to be split between all incomes.13 As things were looking better for the development, Battery Park City returned to their unfortunate ways. In the mid 1970’s the Master Plan fell towards obstacles that which they were not able to overcome. During this time both the State and the City had fell into a fiscal crisis which in turn affected the market for office spaces making them more and more less desirable which overall paralyzed the entire development causing the development to a halt.14 Although for the initial development this was their all-time low, this may have been one of their critical moments in which it allowed Battery Park City to become successful as it is today. Instead of giving up and waiting for the economy to return to its better state, the master plan was taken and re-examined and certain things were changed such that the infrastructure was to be modified as well as the investor’s approval process in order to attract the private investors. By the late 1970’s New York was under pressure to start movement on the project
Figure 4 - Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s 1966 Plan, Based on Gordon, op. cit,