Vision
Freedom Plaza will bring many benefits to the neighborhood and city. It will provide over 500 affordable homes, a 4.7-acre park with waterfront views, thousands of good-paying jobs, billions in economic investment, and hundreds of millions for essential services like public safety, affordable housing, and schools. It will also add a grocery store and restaurants currently lacking in the area and return 2% of the project’s profits back to the community.
Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG Architects:
When Le Corbusier, Niemeyer and Harrison designed the UN Secretariat Building, they grafted an oasis of international modernism onto the dense urban grid of Manhattan, creating a park on the river framed by towers and pavilions. Due to the nature of the work of the UN, access to that park – although open to all nations – remains necessarily restricted, for good reasons.
With our design for Freedom Plaza, we continue to build on these architectural principles by uniting three city blocks to form a public green space reaching from 1st Avenue to the East River overlook, creating a green connection to a view of the water and the rest of New York City beyond.
Bookending the park are two pairs of towers, joined at base or top and each framing a corner plaza: one showcasing the life of the city and the other forming an urban gate from the city to the upper park and East River.. Balanced on a perch overlooking the river, the Museum of Freedom and Democracy neighbors the towers and celebrates the origin and evolution of one of the most impactful inventions of mankind and our continuous struggle to build, maintain and protect the institutions that uphold it.
We are incredibly honored and thrilled to be part of the team that can envision a new major public space in this great city, to contribute to the iconic skyline of Manhattan’s riverfront, and to imagine the architecture of the museum celebrating one of mankind’s greatest inventions: Democracy.”
SITE PLAN
SITE HISTORY AND FUTURE
1900s
Once an industrial area of slaughterhouses, coal yards, and freight depots, this site became home to New York Edison’s Waterside Station in 1901. Despite numerous technological upgrades over decades, the plant caused significant environmental damage to the enclave.
1950s
In 1945, the aftermath of World War II brought the formation of the United Nations. With it came the need for a headquarters, and somewhere to build it. John Rockefeller Jr. purchased the east side parcel of land from real estate developer Wallace Zeckendorf, and donated it to the United Nations. A subsequent competition named two board members, Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier, as designers of the project. The rise of the United Nations proved to be a turning point for the east side area.
2000s
The Beaux Arts-style power plant was decommissioned in 2005 by the now re-named Consolidated Edison. After a sale to the Soloviev Group in 2007, the structure was demolished, creating the vacant lot that remains today. A century of industrial use left the site significantly contaminated and the EPA identified it as a Brownfield, or a property compromised by presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. In response, the Soloviev Group spent nearly $100 million cleansing the land of toxic materials.
Post-2012
In the wake of the significant damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, New York City establishes climate resiliency and the protection of coastal sites from storm surge and future flooding events as a priority.
With waterfront property recognized as one of the city’s greatest assets, a focus on creating a continuous and accessible waterfront park is renewed. The site is one of the few remaining sizable and undeveloped plots of land in Manhattan.
2020s
A partnership of best-in-class industry leaders join forces to develop a welcoming and revitalized riverside destination where recreation, culture and community provide an extraordinary experience for every visitor.