New York has opened Little Island, a nearly one-hectare oasis that floats on the Hudson River

New York again felt the excitement of the tourist crowds this Friday at the scheduled opening of Little Island, a nearly one-hectare oasis that floats on the Hudson River and has taken seven years to build since it was designed by media mogul Barry Diller, its main financier.

Since 6 a.m., when it opened almost by surprise, hundreds of New Yorkers have come to explore this new public park installed on a monumental architectural platform, made up of 132 cement “tulips” which emerge from the water and form reliefs like a floating leaf.

It is a garden of delights “open to all” and “A gift to New York so people have access to a combination of nature and art”, with performances – which will usually be free – of music, dance, theater or comedyLittle Island Executive Coordinator Jessie Long explained.

The park comes to revitalize a pier that was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and has a strong historical component, because at the turn of the last century it was the terminal that hosted the survivors of the Titanic and decades later it was was a musical and LGBT community, before falling into decline.

With 350 species of flowers, trees and shrubs scattered among the hills and verdant plazas overlooking Manhattan, to which is added a place with “food trucks” and an amphitheater with sunsets, the program of which will premiere in June, the Big Apple today added another incentive to its reopening scheduled for the summer.

“I hope Little Island is an enigmatic oasis for all who visit, a place to walk around and be surprised at every turn, lie down and graze in the scenery, and be entertained, educated and stimulated by our programming,” he said in a statement Diller, one of the founders of Fox.

And the point is, its “little island” is the icing on the cake of Hudson River Park, a four-mile-long river park that bathes western Manhattan and whose management consortium decided in 2014 to having the billionaire businessman for a public-private collaboration that doesn’t have been devoid of opposition and almost ended up in a drawer.

The project encountered legal problems due to its environmental impact on the aquatic ecosystem and an alleged lack of transparency, alleged in particular by the magnate Douglas Durst, developer of several well-known New York skyscrapers and who made headlines about a battle of titans.

Finally, the president of Internet conglomerate IAC has contributed $ 260 million to the project and a financial commitment of an additional $ 160 million to maintain it for the next two decades through the philanthropic foundation he runs with his wife, fashion designer Diane. Von Furstenberg. .

The design was carried out by British architect Thomas Heatherwick, creator of the controversial tourist sculpture The Vessel, an intricate 45-meter-high spiral staircase with metallic sheen that leads nowhere in the center of upscale Hudson Yards, near.

The Diller-Furstenbergs, who have a lot of influence in western New York, got involved as patrons in important tourist attractions such as the High Line, the Whitney Museum or the Museum of the Statue of Liberty , they say, because they love “Art and public spaces” and are “lucky enough to have resources”.

Speaking to CNBC, Diller was optimistic about his contribution to the resurgence of what was the epicenter of the pandemic: “For a year this was deserted. It looked like a nuclear explosion had swept away the humans. Now we come out of it and it shows in the streets: people are happy. I’m happy, ”he said.

With information from EFE

Photos and video: Ronen Suarc

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