A woman walks along the East River Esplanade near the Queensboro Bridge.

The East River Esplanade bore some of the worst of Hurricane Sandy’s wrath. Stretching from East 60th to 125th Street along the water, the pedestrian walkway was the first area on the Upper East Side to be hit by the storm’s tidal surges, before they flooded forward as far as Second Avenue on some streets. Now, two months after the storm, city workers are still assessing the extent of the damages and considering the esplanade’s future to determine the best approach to repairs.

“When in doubt, assume a section of the esplanade was underwater and covered with debris,” said Mark Vaccaro, the Upper East Side’s Parks and Recreation manager. He attended a recent Community Board 8 Parks Committee meeting to share what his department has been dealing with since Sandy hit. “You can pretty much assume the plant life along the esplanade is toast,” he added.

Vaccaro walked the entire esplanade after the storm and took pictures of the sea rails, walking path and flora to catalogue damages. A team of engineers, he said, also rode in a boat alongside the esplanade to inspect its walls. Together, they determined that none of the damage was life-threatening. Small pieces of the capstones between the walkway’s seawall and railing were knocked out in 122 places. Several large chunks of the wall itself were stripped off and washed away. At East 66th, 79th and 117th streets, small gaps between the seawall and platform had formed, which, if not repaired before the next instance of flooding, could be filled with water that would push the wall out and collapse parts of the esplanade.

Around half of the walkway’s trees were dead, he said. The London plane trees were dormant and survived, but the oaks and cherries, along with the walkway’s shrubs and grass, were still drawing water and drowned. (Had the storm hit a month later, he noted, plant life would have been much safer, because almost all of it would have been “asleep.”) Many lampposts continued to work, but Vaccaro warned that salt water damage to their circuitry meant that “at some point, there are going to be a lot of electrical problems out there.”

“We really took a huge hit from this storm,” he said, noting that more parks in the neighborhood had been closed than in downtown Manhattan. But on the esplanade, he emphasized, “It’s not a safety issue. It’s a maintenance issue, an issue of repair.”

What form repairs will take is controversial, because Upper East Siders have been lobbying for an improved waterfront for years. Even before the storm hit, the walkway was riddled with sinkholes and uneven surfaces over sections that were built over 60 years ago. Whether the city will make only superficial repairs or invest in a long-term transformation is a big issue for many community members.

“I know this sounds terrible, but I was hoping that the hurricane actually damaged the esplanade to such an extent that the city would have to pay attention to it—without anybody being injured, of course,” said Teri Slater, a CB8 member. “What’s happening on the esplanade is plastic surgery on a decaying infrastructure.”

Jane Swanson, chief of staff for Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, agreed that the storm might end up being “a blessing and a curse” for the walkway.

“It’s an opportunity now,” she said at the committee meeting. “I hate to say it that way, but it does force us to look at [the esplanade] and say, ‘Hmm, okay, what can we do with regard to making this safe in the event of storms, while also making it a compelling and wonderful place for us to enjoy?’”

Swanson said that in order to proceed, however, the board would have to wait for a full engineering study of the esplanade that analyzes the many different ways it was constructed over years of additions and renovations. This study has been in progress and was planned to be finished around the end of the year, but now its projected completion date has been pushed back to February or March because of the storm.

“It’s hard to provide a big bulk of funding [for a renovation project] if you don’t know what that is,” Swanson said. She added that after Mayor Michael Bloomberg presents his next preliminary fiscal year budget in January, however, her office will have a better sense of how they can allocate funds to push the project forward.

The shabby state of Manhattan’s East River Esplanade, crumbling with age and plagued by awkwardly configured spaces, minimal amenities and deterioration due to a general lack of upkeep, has been a source of displeasure for East Siders for years.

City Council Member Jessica Lappin has said her office receives frequent calls from residents of East Harlem and the Upper East Side complaining about the condition of the waterfront area between 60th and 125th streets.

“Many of us on the East Side have been very jealous, for a long time, of what West Siders have to take advantage of when it comes to their waterfront parks,” she said.

Now, city officials and community advocates have begun soliciting feedback in their mission to craft a vision for an ambitious improvement of the aesthetically neglected East River Esplanade.

Canals weaving inland, intertwining with Manhattan’s city grid; a network of modern boardwalks spiking out into the water off the shoreline; advanced irrigation systems; and dramatic landscaping are just a few examples of designs for the new park put forth by the winners of a Civitas ideas competition.

Civitas, a nonprofit organization that works to improve urban planning and land use policies on the Upper East Side and East Harlem, launched the contest in the fall of 2010, encouraging architects from around the world to submit proposals for creative development of the Esplanade. The competition drew 90 submissions.

“We looked at other great spaces in New York City—Hudson River Park, the High Line—how did they get their start,” said Hunter Armstrong, executive director of Civitas. “With a comprehensive vision coming from their community with an ideas competition.”
The winners were chosen by a panel of eight judges: six architects, a zoning attorney and William Castro, the Parks Department’s Manhattan borough commissioner. Requested improvements included expansion of available activities, integration of existing features and increased access to the waterfront, among other criteria.

Lappin called the winning designs inspirational.

“Coming up with the vision for what we want shouldn’t start out from a place that’s restricted to what we think we can do, but with what we would love to do,” she said

Submissions to the Civitas competition were not restricted by financial feasibility or zoning requirements. Armstrong noted that the winning designs may not necessarily come to fruition in development of the Esplanade.

“We wish there were major dollars at the end of this to implement some of these designs, but obviously work is needed to build that political and community support. This was a creative process to…pool in the community, constituents and stakeholders and get them to start thinking about the future of the park,” he said.

The Museum of the City of New York unveiled its Reimagining the Waterfront exhibition, which showcases the contest’s three winners and five honorable mentions, two weeks ago. The exhibit will be on display through Oct. 28.

First-place winner , an architecture graduate student at Syracuse University, produced a design plan that integrates the Upper East Side and East Harlem neighborhoods adjacent to the river by extending the boundaries of the waterfront inland via canals.
“I think, different from all the other projects, my idea was the thought of pulling the water into the city, bringing the waterfront to the people,” said Wood, who added that he, like many of the winners, had not actually visited the Esplanade while crafting his ambitious design.

Takumo Ono and Darina Zlateva of New York City and Matteo Rossetti of Italy won second and third place, respectively.