City Fights Sea Rise With Platforms, Flood Walls In Two Bridges

TWO BRIDGES, NY — Flood barriers will flip up and roll out in the Two Bridges neighborhood by 2024 after three years of feasibility and coastal studies, officials said at a sparsely attended community meeting Wednesday night.

From Brooklyn Bridge to Montgomery Street, eight-to-10-foot-tall flood barriers will sit atop platforms beneath the FDR Drive as a part of a plan to fortify the neighborhood from future storm surges and rising sea levels caused by climate change.

"The idea is in addition to preventing surge flooding, which the flip-up gates work on, we also wanted to develop as a part of the system something to address sea level rise," said Jordan Salinger, a senior policy advisor with the Mayor's Office of Recovery and Resiliency.

The newly announced platforms — which would range in height from six inches to two feet — would protect against high tides and flooding that rising sea levels will bring to the city's coastlines even in the absence of hurricanes, officials said Wednesday.

On top of the platforms, the city plans to install a series of flood walls that would flip up, roll out or stand fixed. The exact design will be done by fall 2020 and construction would begin in 2021, city officials said.

The project is a part of a $500 million suite resiliency investments meant to fortify Lower Manhattan. That's in addition to a $1.45 billion project that will rebuild East River Park starting in March and a $10 billion plan to extend the Financial District into the East River that's currently being evaluated by a team of experts.

After the walls are implemented in Two Bridges, fitness areas, basketball courts, open space and other recreation facilities will be built on top of them. The city may scrap a bocce court and turf field following residents' calls for other recreation options that would be more widely used, city representatives said Wednesday. Another part of the plan would be a drainage system that would increase capacity during heavy rainfall and connect to the east side resiliency plan.

Critics blasted the city's quasi-public Economic Development Corporation for a lack of outreach for the sparsely attended meeting. The crowd largely comprised city officials and representatives from the firms they're working with.

"The outreach is horrible," said Trever Holland, a Two Bridges resident who has been advocating for improvements on the waterfront for years. "A lot of officials [are here] but not regular residents."

But, so far, the plan hasn't drawn the same outrage as the East River Park project further north.

Longtime Two Bridges resident Elaine Hoffman said she liked the proposal for the barriers, since they would mostly be deployed ahead of a storm.

"Because then you can see the river," she said. "You can see the boats."

A few others said they felt the presentation was informative and helpful for understanding the plan.

Yim-Ping Chuen, who lives on Essex Street a few blocks west of the waterfront, evacuated during Superstorm Sandy to Flushing, Queens with friends. She is scared of having to do that again, she said in Cantonese through an interpreter at the meeting.

The once-quiet neighborhood is readying for a surge of changes along the waterfront. Four proposed, mostly-market-rate towers are caught in a legal battle with Manhattan politicians and Two Bridges community groups. A plan to revamp a crumbling part of the esplanade beneath the Brooklyn Bridge is also in the works.

The EDC will return to Community Board 3 for another update on both the Brooklyn Bridge esplanade project and the Two Bridges resiliency plan — now called the Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resilience project — on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m. at 30 Delancey St.