The bustle of traffic returning to Manhattan’s FDR Drive as COVID-19 lockdowns end has an unlikely mirror image out on the nearby East River, where crews on nearly two dozen barges are drilling bedrock, ferrying concrete and lifting precast deck and bridge pieces for a $100-million effort to construct an elevated 1.8-acre park with new bike and pedestrian paths on the water.
The East Midtown Greenway will extend for 2,000 ft on a deck atop the river from East 53rd to East 61st streets, hitched to land on the south side by a 114-ft-long pedestrian bridge and by a ramp structure on the north. The project is a major link in the city’s goal to complete a bikeway-pedestrian path network circling Manhattan, with some portions complete and future sections pending.