Should NY get something like Baltimore's Inner Harbor?

[alex ballard]

Should NY have a part of our waterfront be like Baltimore's Inner Harbor. I mean, have entertainment, cultural, and historic functions along the water? I can see a mosaic of entertainment centers and historical/cultural piers along the Lower Manhattan or Downtown Brooklyn waterfronts. What do you think?

[NewYorkYankee]

It would be good.

[billyblancoNYC]

NY should build up its waterfront, and it is. There will be passive and active recreation and commercial entertainment when the Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and East River Park is created and completed. The plans in place, I think, are pretty good and fairly diverse in nature. I wish that village plan would be developed in Red Hook instead of that horrible Ikea, but what can you do. Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and LIC will mostly be parkland and apartments, so not much entertainment there.

[fioco]

The Inner Harbor is a unique focal point and central axis for Baltimore's core: the CBD, National Aquarium, Camden Yards, etc. It may spawn imitators but it would be difficult to rival the original. Your ideas, Alex, are imaginative and visionary. For too long NYC had neglected its waterfront, but as billyblanco stated briefly, the waterfront is undergoing transformation in many and diverse forms, including -- albeit only in small part --its development as a working port.

As more of the waterfront becomes residential, its needs will change. Baltimore's concentration of commercial and retail enterprises would be out-of-step with the needs of a NYC neighborhood. For example, do we need another South Street Seaport Mall? Of course not, but that doesn't rule out new restaurants, shops and diversions along the developing waterfront. All five boroughs are developing waterfront areas, so your vision is bound to come true, just in ways you perhaps have not imagined.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Baltimore is a good model for the idea of new waterfront uses, but the geography is completely different from New York. Baltimore has about 50 miles of waterfront, most of it concentrated in a cove (the Inner Harbor) surrounded by the city. Baltimore expanded its downtown CBD out to the harbor by adaptive reuse of the waterfront district.

New York's waterfront is not centrally focused. Using Lower Manhattan as an example, the CBD is already at the East River; the problem is access to the water.

[muscle1313]

I love Baltimore's Inner Harbor. My wife and I have visted several times. Sheepshead Bay has some of the same potential with the restaurants hotels and boats (and Aquarium and Keyspan Park in nearby Coney Island.) One rumored city proposal going around Sheepshead Bay is having Canoeing and Kayaking rentals in the Bay this summer to go along with the boats. I think one of the really fun things about the Inner Harbor is the paddle boats in the water for all to enjoy. The Bay needs this type of recreational activity. I think kayaking is in the works.

[islandpete]

Wait till they get this open space set up bet you will see many more ships tied up there as you have in lower east side now. Its a perfect place and what is great about the island is it's in the center of the harbor. It's really a small city with in a city. It might take a while, but it will come and it will be grand