East River Park, also called John V. Lindsay East River Park, is 57.5-acre (20 ha) public park located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, part of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Bisected by the Williamsburg Bridge, it stretches along the East River from Montgomery Street up to 12th Street on the east side of the FDR Drive. Its now-demolished amphitheater, built in 1941 just south of Grand Street, had been reconstructed and was often used for public performances. The park includes football, baseball, and soccer fields; tennis, basketball, and handball courts; a running track; and bike paths, including the East River Greenway. Fishing is another popular activity.
New York City has seen a cycle of modest boom and a bust in the 1980s, a major boom in the 1990s, and mixed prospects since then. This period has seen severe racial tension, a dramatic spike and fall of crime rates, and a major influx of immigrants growing the city's population past the eight million mark. The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 had a lasting impact on the city that continues to reverberate to the present.
The Manhattan Waterfront Greenway is a waterfront greenway for walking or cycling, 32 miles (51 km) long, around the island of Manhattan, in New York City. The largest portions are operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It is separated from motor traffic, and many sections also separate pedestrians from cyclists. There are three principal parts — the East, Harlem and Hudson River Greenways.
In New York City, a planned congestion pricing scheme will charge vehicles traveling into or within the central business district of Manhattan. First proposed in 2007, this disincentivizing fee to cut down on traffic congestion was approved and included in the 2019 New York State budget.
Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water levels. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and runoff. Though building hard infrastructure to prevent flooding, such as flood walls, can be effective at managing flooding, increased best practice within landscape engineering is to rely more on soft infrastructure and natural systems, such as marshes and flood plains, for handling the increase in water. For flooding on coasts, coastal management practices have to not only handle changes water flow, but also natural processes like tides.
The Waterfront Alliance is a nonprofit organization that works to influence the development and use of the waterfront, shoreline, and connected upland areas of the Port of New York and New Jersey in northern New Jersey and New York City as well as other areas of the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary.
Climate change in New York City could affect buildings/structures, wetlands, water supply, health, and energy demand, due to the high population and extensive infrastructure in the region. A seaport like New York is especially at risk if the sea level rises, with many bridges and tunnels in the city. Major facilities for Aviation in the New York metropolitan area, and the New York Passenger Ship Terminal, are also located in areas vulnerable to flooding. Flooding would be expensive to reverse. Tide gauge records indicate a rise in sea level of about 50 cm since 1860.
The Gateway Program is the planned phased expansion and renovation of the Northeast Corridor (NEC) rail line between Newark, New Jersey and New York City, New York. The right-of-way runs between Newark Penn Station and New York Penn Station (NYP). The project would build new rail bridges in the New Jersey Meadowlands and new tunnels under Bergen Hill and the Hudson River, along with fully rehabilitating the existing tunnel built in 1910, and construct a new terminal annex.
The East River Greenway is an approximately 9.44-mile-long (15.19 km) foreshoreway for walking or cycling on the east side of the island of Manhattan on the East River. It is part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway. The largest portions are operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It is separated from motor traffic, and many sections also separate pedestrians from cyclists. The greenway is parallel to the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive for a majority of its length.
The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, is a 25-acre (10 ha) public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. It is bounded by Battery Place on the north, State Street on the east, New York Harbor to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. The park contains attractions such as an early 19th-century fort named Castle Clinton; multiple monuments; and the SeaGlass Carousel. The surrounding area, known as South Ferry, contains multiple ferry terminals, including the Staten Island Ferry's Whitehall Terminal; a boat launch to the Statue of Liberty National Monument ; and a boat launch to Governors Island.
New York was severely affected by Hurricane Sandy on October 29–30, 2012, particularly New York City, its suburbs, and Long Island. Sandy's impacts included the flooding of the New York City Subway system, of many suburban communities, and of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel. The New York Stock Exchange closed for two consecutive days. Numerous homes and businesses were destroyed by fire, including over 100 homes in Breezy Point, Queens. Large parts of the city and surrounding areas lost electricity for several days. Several thousand people in midtown Manhattan were evacuated for six days due to a crane collapse at Extell's One57. Bellevue Hospital Center and a few other large hospitals were closed and evacuated. Flooding at 140 West Street and another exchange disrupted voice and data communication in lower Manhattan.
The term sixth borough is used to describe any of a number of places that are not politically within the borders of any of the five boroughs of New York City but have been referred to as a metaphorical part of the city by virtue of their geographic location, demographic composition, special affiliation with New York City, or cosmopolitan character. They include adjacent cities and counties in the New York metropolitan area as well as in other states, U.S. territories, and foreign countries.
The New York Harbor Storm-Surge Barrier is a proposed barrier and floodgate system to protect the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary from storm surges. The proposed system would consist of one barrier located across the mouth of Lower New York Bay between Sandy Hook (N.J.) and Rockaway (N.Y.) and a second on the upper East River to provide a ring of protection to most of the bi-state region. Through extensive use of floodgates, both barriers would have largely open cross-sections during normal conditions to minimize environmental impacts on the estuary and port operations.
In 2017, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) due to ongoing reliability and crowding problems with mass transit in New York City. This order applied particularly to the New York City Subway, which was the most severely affected by dilapidated infrastructure, causing overcrowding and delays. With many parts of the system approaching or exceeding 100 years of age, general deterioration could be seen in many subway stations. By 2017, only 65% of weekday trains reached their destinations on time, the lowest rate since a transit crisis in the 1970s. To a lesser extent, New York City buses operated by the MTA were also affected. Both the subway and the buses are run by the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), a subsidiary of the MTA. A separate crisis at Penn Station affected the routes of the three railroad agencies that provided service into the station. Media outlets deemed these crises "the summer of hell".
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.
The expansion of the land area of Lower Manhattan in New York City by land reclamation has, over time, greatly altered Manhattan Island's shorelines on the Hudson and East rivers; as well as those of the Upper New York Bay. The extension of the island began with European colonialization and continued in the 20th century. Incremental encroachment as well as major infrastructure have added acreage to the island. Since the passage of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 all projects which extend into navigable waterways follow federal regulation and are overseen by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
The East Shore Seawall, also known as Staten Island Multi-Use Elevated Promenade, is a 5.2-mile (8.4 km) long combined seawall and esplanade proposed for the eastern shoreline of Staten Island, New York. It would run along the Lower New York Bay linking sections of the Gateway National Recreation Area: Fort Wadsworth at the north, Miller Field, and Great Kills Park to the south. It will roughly parallel Father Capodanno Boulevard and the South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk.
Vincent Sapienza is an American civil servant who is serving as the Chief Operating Officer of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. From 2017 to 2022, he was the agency's Commissioner.
Rohit T. "Rit" Aggarwala is an American environmental policy adviser, transportation planner, historian, and civil servant who is New York City’s Chief Climate Officer as well as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.
The environment of New York City consists of many interwoven ecosystems as part of the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary. The climate of New York City shapes the environment with its cool, wet winters and hot, humid summers with plentiful rainfall all year round. As of 2020, New York City held 44,509 acres of urban tree canopy with 24% of its land covered in trees. As of 2020, the population of New York City numbered 8.8 million human beings.
