Chelsea

By Leslie McGuire, managing editor

Thomas Balsley Associates, Lead Designer ?EUR??,,????'???? Donna Walcavage, Landscape Architecture + Urban Design, Playground Designer

This is what New Yorkers have always needed?EUR??,,????'??+a playground with range that provides play for the old, the young, the four-legged, the two-legged, the thinkers, the doers, the busy, the relaxed, the arty, the sporty?EUR??,,????'??+in short, a playground for everyone.

Although Chelsea Waterside Park, including the play area portion, was designed by Thomas Balsley Associates, Donna Walcavage of Landscape Architecture + Urban Design was hired to design the play equipment a few years later when funds finally became available. She adapted theme areas within the design of the play section to go with the chosen equipment.

Thomas Balsley Associates?EUR??,,????'??? program and design for the park take into account Chelsea?EUR??,,????'???s multiplicity of open space and recreational needs as well as a diverse constituency that includes children and parents, youth sports leagues, workers on their lunch hour, senior citizens, art gallery visitors, garden enthusiasts and dog owners. The schematic plans show active recreation and play areas for the blocks north of 23rd Street, with more passive areas to the south where a major art gallery district has emerged over the last five years.

A lively combination of open lawns and green spaces for passive uses like sunning and picnicking; multipurpose sports fields; court games; shade structures; an interactive water play area for children of all ages; and Chelsea?EUR??,,????'???s only horticultural displays add much-needed new park space to the neighborhood. Other design and programmatic elements include an elevated sunset overlook in the park?EUR??,,????'???s northwest corner, a centrally located restroom and food concession structure adjacent to a raised caf????(C) terrace, and a state-of-the-art, adventure dog run with topography, boulders, tree trunks, and water runnel. The added value of the dog run is that it will also promote extended hours of activity in the remote southern corner of the park.

The 6 to 10 or 12-year old play area includes a newly developed equipment system that has turning devices that spin and guy wires with foot holds to climb.

Stylistically the park?EUR??,,????'???s plan and elements are carefully controlled curves; forms that suggest the movement associated with active recreational uses and the river beyond. They are expressed in colored concrete; natural cleft granite and industrial-strength stainless steel, all suggesting the power of this waterfront?EUR??,,????'???s past and a durability that can withstand the realities of urban wear and tear. Interrupted with fields of cobblestones, the huge pavement slabs of bluestone and granite recall nineteenth-century attitudes about durable sidewalks and waterfronts. Tall, poetic, stainless steel pylons provide a dramatic contrast to the plan?EUR??,,????'???s soft curvilinear forms, as do occasional oversized Catskill boulders in the dog run and children?EUR??,,????'???s water park.

The result is a composition of dynamic curving forms of color and stainless steel features in a compelling dialogue with split-faced stone walls, huge stone slabs, and boulders that treat each visitor to a provocative interplay between the past and present, the rugged industrial and the poetic.

Because of the cost issues, it was decided to purchase ?EUR??,,????'??off the shelf?EUR??,,????'?? playground equipment rather than having all the equipment custom designed as originally planned. Kompan?EUR??,,????'???s newly designed line of equipment worked extremely well with Tom Balsley?EUR??,,????'???s designs.

Within the park, the design team has expressed motion in a formalized composition of spiraling, curving forms that are created with walls of different heights. The walls are painted in colors that are soft but distinctive hues in the New York landscape. Pavements throughout are large slabs of bluestone or granite bordered by cobblestones, which suggest a narrative that this was once a working waterfront in which original cobblestones have been replaced over the years.

In the children?EUR??,,????'???s water-play area, multi-colored shards resting in pigmented concrete mirror where water falls and how it runs. Donna Walcavage, of Landscape Architecture + Urban Design, designed the playground to fit into Thomas Balsley Associate?EUR??,,????'???s (TBA) Chelsea Waterside Park, not only physically but in design style and spirit as well. TBA had designed the space and the original version of the water-play area, but some changes were made to comply with the most recent safety guidelines for public playgrounds.

The play surfacing is blended rubber mixed with color shards?EUR??,,????'??+rather like a pointillist painting. This not only makes the color richer, but makes the surface resemble a Seurat painting?EUR??,,????'??+a bow to the art galleries that are springing up all around the park.

The water-play section of the park was originally conceived and designed as an integral part of the park?EUR??,,????'??+however, once one plans to do something as innovative as that original design, one invariably ends up needing to make adjustments.

Although originally designed as a custom playground, it was way over the budget, and there aren?EUR??,,????'???t very many manufacturers who create custom equipment inexpensively.

It was important to divide the playground space into areas suitable for two to five-year-olds and then six and above. Of course, the play equipment a child chooses to use depends on that child?EUR??,,????'???s abilities. However, there is a natural flow between the two spaces that allows children to move back and forth, to experiment and try new exciting activities, or just stick with comforting tried-and-true equipment. As a playground designer, Donna Walcavage likes to create an additional area for children under two. It?EUR??,,????'???s also important to make sure there?EUR??,,????'???s a place for parents and caretakers to sit comfortably. Benches constructed of all steel and wood are close by, providing comfortable seating. Brightly colored umbrellas were placed to create shade. Since the playground is in New York City, they couldn?EUR??,,????'???t use cloth, so they used steel instead. Trees have been planted, as well, however they are along the periphery of the park and therefore can?EUR??,,????'???t really provide shade in the playground area.

Lush plantings throughout the park?EUR??,,????'??+which is the neighborhood?EUR??,,????'???s only horticultural display?EUR??,,????'??+include Japanese yew, ?EUR??,,????'??China Boy?EUR??,,????'?? and ?EUR??,,????'??China Girl?EUR??,,????'?? holly, Korean azalea, Betty Prior rose, white flowering azalea, periwinkle/myrtle, English ivy, Nikko blue hydrangea, hidcote lavender and threadleaf coreopsis.

Donna Walcavage also specified the plantings around the playground area. The sand pit area is designed so that the two to five-year-old play equipment and accessories are actually in the sand pit, along with play toys. There is also a place where children can play more quietly, off to the side. A curved and winding area of surfacing borders the sand pit area as well as a transfer area so a child in a wheel chair can have access to the sand. Movable, floral shaped, variously colored sand tables are scattered in the sand area. Some have multiple levels for pouring practice (Baby physics? Proto gravity work?) with sifters to send the sand down through the top table to another level.

Play metal, air metal, fences and lights all use a color scheme that isn?EUR??,,????'???t typical, so in the planning stages it was really very difficult getting all the colors to work together. Donna and her team worked very hard to make sure the colors would be consistent throughout, which ended up being very time consuming.

Designed by Thomas Balsley, the ?EUR??,,????'??Wet Apple?EUR??,,????'?? sculpture in the water-play area mirrors the spiraling, flowing curves of the paving. In the background, walls slip by one another providing passage between framing spaces which are cut and slotted to allow views through them.

Kompan designed the climbing equipment in the two to five-year-old area. The equipment is a little closer to what might be expected in a standard playground with ladders, slides and places to peek out through the walls. Younger children have some spring-riding play equipment as well as a bench that looks like an alligator, a noisemaker that can be manipulated and a bowl for sitting in and twirling around.

The six to 10 or 12-year-old play area is very modern looking, but more importantly, it also utilizes and incorporates a new look at how children play. In general, playgrounds get much more usage in New York City because people don?EUR??,,????'???t have backyards. If children need to ?EUR??,,????'??go out and play,?EUR??,,????'?? they have to be taken to the playground. The community, developers, designers and landscape architects are hoping this will improve the longevity of their park because people go to the playground every day and lots of traffic tends to discourage vandalism and create neighborhood pride.

The pavement in this state-of-the-art ?EUR??,,????'??adventure dog run?EUR??,,????'?? is concrete so it can be easily hosed down by volunteers and the park maintenance staff. The dog run (please read ?EUR??,,????'??Dog Playground?EUR??,,????'??) includes a water funnel, fallen tree, climbing boulders and hills.

Several meetings were held with the community from the presentation of the starting design, through all the changes, up to the final design. The community was very active in the decision making process because the park was going to change the whole neighborhood.

By the time Walcavage started on the playground, the community had a very good idea what they wanted the park to look like.

Balsley also designed these sculptural shapes for the fountains in the water play park. In addition, water spouts are set into the surrounding walls so cooling sprays can come from several different directions at once.

They?EUR??,,????'???d originally wanted some sort of nautical theme. Running along the west side of Manhattan, the park is actually part of the old West Side highway. Historically the site was an historic warehouse and shipping area with cobblestone streets and large brick buildings.
Now West Street, also known as route 9a, is on the other side of park, and beyond that are the Chelsea Piers and the Hudson River. The whole area was put together from a conglomeration of an older small park, and includes what was left over after realigning Route 9a and tearing down a group of buildings. Because of its location, the entire park mimics the flow of the water and the playground continues that theme. Even though there were changes that didn?EUR??,,????'???t follow the nautical theme, now that the playground is completed, everyone in the community loves the design and equipment.

There were two sources of community input for this 2.5 acre segment of Hudson River park. The first was the community board and its parks committee and the second was the Chelsea Waterside Park Association. The latter was almost solely responsible for the park?EUR??,,????'???s original vision and advocacy. Both participated in the design review process.

The area is for use by children of all ages, and their families. Walcavage divided the playground into zones based on age groups, with infants and toddlers tucked into the corner furthest from the exits and out of the way of the rougher, older children. However, they aren?EUR??,,????'???t so out-of-the-way that the most adventurous among them can?EUR??,,????'???t venture onto the next age level area when they feel ready.

A rarity in recent New York City playgrounds is the sand pit. It acts as safety surfacing for the play structures for two to five-year-olds as well as a play thing in its own right, perhaps the best play thing of all. Sand toys are set into it, and a raised portion is accessible to all.

The park provides lawns for free play lawns, multi-purpose sports fields such as youth soccer and football, softball, youth baseball, court games such as volleyball and basketball and an interactive water play area.

In this new park, the trees have not yet had a chance to grow to a size where they will provide shade. Comfort on hot days is therefore a must. Brightly colored umbrellas, which are in fact metal structures, cover integral snack tables at benches that surround the play spaces. But it?EUR??,,????'???s the water play that makes New York summer days most fun for the youngest of the visitors.

The colors and materials were carefully controlled throughout to fit into the bright and modern palette that TBA chose. The design of the safety surface accents that sensitive color relationship, as well as the flowing design of the curved space.

The neighborhood was a rugged working waterfront with cobblestone and huge granite slabs as pavement and rough-faced granite bulkhead blocks. These rugged materials have been re-used as a means of expressing that past and as a practical material for the urban park space. Passages of Chelsea?EUR??,,????'???s history are being collected and will be engraved on the promenade wall.

A new form of safer, less space consuming merry-go-round, the Galaxy Spica, allows children to control their spin by leaning and shifting their weight on the foot pads.

It is this composition of curving, colorful forms, textured pavements and lush plantings of shrubs, ground covers, flowering trees and flower beds that creates an exciting park as full of activities as of style. It is truly a park that will fill the hearts of those who enter it with joy and surprise and give them a heightened sense of appreciation for living in the most exciting city in the world.

Chelsea Piers: An Elegant History

Designed by the architectural firm of Warren and Westmore (also designers of Grand Central Terminal which was being built at the same time) and dedicated in 1910, the Chelsea Piers were the city?EUR??,,????'???s premier passenger ship terminal. The first of the new luxury liners, the Lusitania and Mauritania, docked there. The Lusitania, left the Chelsea Piers in May of 1915 and was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat killing 1,198 people.

The Oceanic called those piers home. The ?EUR??,,????'??unsinkable?EUR??,,????'?? Titanic was headed for a berth at the Chelsea Piers when it struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912 and sank on its maiden voyage. Of the 2,200 passengers on board, 675 passengers were rescued by the Cunard liner Carpathia, and brought to the Chelsea Piers on April 20, 1912.
Called, ?EUR??,,????'??the most remarkable urban design achievement of their day?EUR??,,????'?? by The New York Times, the magnificent row of grand buildings embellished with pink granite facades was the embarkation point for soldiers departing for battlefields of World War I and World War II.

Chelsea Piers, Manhattan

On Oct. 29, 1929, when the Barengaria docked at the Chelsea Piers, all but a handful of the passengers who disembarked were bankrupt.

By 1933, the economic disaster of the depression had wreaked havoc on transatlantic travel as well as the Atlantic trade. Travelers dropped from one million in 1929 to less than half by 1935. In addition, there was the development of huge new vessels such as the thousand-foot-long Normandie and Queen Mary. When they came steaming into port, they bypassed the Chelsea Piers because newer, much longer piers were needed. Those were constructed further north between West 44th and West 52nd Streets, forming what was called, ?EUR??,,????'??Luxury Liner Row.?EUR??,,????'?? By 1958, nearly all transatlantic passenger ship travel ground to a halt when daily commercial jet service to Europe began. From there on in, the Chelsea Piers were neglected, fell into disuse and disrepair and were finally slated for demolition. The memories of glittering evening clothes and elegant music was all that was left, until 1992 when a proposal was initiated to refurbish, develop and operate the Piers as a sports and entertainment facility. The $100 million dollar, privately financed project has turned the long neglected but historically important Chelsea Piers into a major center for public recreation and waterfront access.