Chinatown’s Forsyth Street Plaza Will Finally Open Next Summer, City Officials Promise

CHINATOWN, NY — The perpetually postponed plaza at Forsyth and Canal streets has an updated opening date of summer 2017, nearly eight years after plans for the small park first began, a city official told Patch.

The elevated park, dubbed Chinatown’s “mini High Line,” has been plagued by repeated delays since planning began in 2009.

The triangular space is bordered by Forsyth Street, Canal Street and the Manhattan Bridge. The city’s plans include “garden lighting, benches, tree plantings, decorative paving, drinking fountain, two lane bicycle path and a public art work element,” according to the project description.

Construction on Forsyth Street Plaza didn’t start until March 2015, six years after residents first heard about the project. City officials previously promised the park would be finished by fall 2016.

But that deadline came and went, and now, the park's anticipated completion date has been delayed another 9 months or so, to summer 2017.

This time, city officials are blaming the delay on the fact that the project’s contractor — Trocom Construction — recently filed for bankruptcy, according to DNAinfo.

"We're certainly well past the anticipated date that we broadcasted at the start of the project. Where we are right now, we have a contractor that has been going through a bankruptcy issue," Norberto Acevedo Jr., a deputy director of the Department of Design and Construction (DDC), reportedly said at a recent community meeting.

A Trocom employee who identified himself only as "Joe," though, told DNAinfo that the project was delayed because of "the city's poor planning," and not because of the contractor's financial difficulties.

A spokesman for the DDC said Monday that a community liaison for the project would not be able to speak with Patch to explain the delay.

Instead, the spokesman sent along this statement to Patch: "Our anticipated date of completion for Forsyth Plaza is summer 2017. We began sending out weekly updates to the community as soon as the project commenced in March 2015."

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