opened Little Island, a surprising “floating oasis” funded by a tycoon

new York He again felt the excitement of crowds of tourists this Friday in the little island apertura, an oasis of nearly one hectare that “floats” on the Hudson River and that it has taken seven years to build it since it was designed by its main financier, media mogul Barry Diller.

Since 6 a.m., when it opened its doors almost by surprise, Hundreds of New Yorkers came to explore this new public park installed on a monumental architectural platform, formed 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 for people to have access to a combination of nature and art“, with performances – which will generally be free – of music, dance, theater or comedyLittle Island Executive Coordinator Jessie Long explained.

The park revitalizes a pier which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and which has a strong historical component, since the beginning of the last century This is the terminal that hosted the survivors of the Titanic and decades later, it was a vibrant musical and LGBT hotbed, before falling into decline.

With 350 species of flowers, trees and shrubs distributed between green hills and plazas overlooking Manhattan, to which is added a square with food trucks Yes an amphitheater with a view of the sunset who will do the first lineup in June, the Big Apple added this way one more incentive for its reopening scheduled for the summer.

“I hope Little Island serves as an enigmatic oasis for all who visit, a place where you can walk around and be pleasantly surprised with every turn, lean back into the landscape and be entertained, educated and stimulated by our programming, ”said Diller, President and CEO of IAC / InterActiveCorp and one of the founders of Fox.

Legal issue

And it is that its “small island” is the “icing on the cake” of the Hudson River Park, a river park of more than six kilometers which bathes the west of Manhattan and which the management consortium decided in 2014 to have the multimillionaire businessman for a public-private collaboration that was not without opposition and almost ended up in a drawer.

The project faces legal issues 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 the headlines on a “battle of the 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 by British architect Thomas Heatherwick, creator of the controversial tourist sculpture The Vessel, an intricate 45-meter-high spiral staircase of metallic sequins that leads nowhere in the center of upscale and neighboring Hudson Yards.

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

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

Nora Quintanilla / EFE