New sections of the $165M East River Waterfront Esplanade to open by summer

Four new sections of the $165 million East River Waterfront Esplanade will be ready to go in plenty of time for summer, a city official told DNAInfo.

Scheduled for April openings are the glass-walled Maiden Lane pavilion, under the FDR Drive at Maiden Lane and South Street; a hunk of riverfront pathway; and two pavilions on Pier 15, according to Terri Bahr, a project manager for the city Economic Development Corporation. The first section opened in July 2011.

When completed — the tentative date is sometime in 2014 — the Esplanade will feature 2 miles of greenery, stone path and bike lanes; renovated piers; and new eateries. The project will eventually run from the Battery Maritime Building up to Montgomery Street, north of Pier 35, becoming part of a larger greenway connecting the West Side’s Hudson River Park with a loop to the East Side.

“One of the goals of the waterfront plan is to reconnect New Yorkers to New York City’s more than 500 miles of waterfront and make it part of their everyday lives,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the opening of the first section. [DNAInfo] —Christopher Cameron