New York City’s new elevated waterfront: in pictures

This spring, New York officials opened the first sections of the $1.45bn East Side Coastal Resiliency project. Stretching 2.4 miles (3.9km) along the lower east side of Manhattan, it’s part of the largest urban climate-adaptation project in the United States.

The project was conceived in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which sent storm surges as high as 14ft (4 metres) into Lower Manhattan.

Main features include storm walls, berms and thick steel floodgates, all built to protect Lower Manhattan from future floods.

‘The whole idea was to use the park as the “wall” that would protect the community behind it, but also give the community new access to a park they could enjoy,’ said Amy Chester, director of Rebuild by Design, a New York-based non-profit that worked with city and federal officials on the project.

At Asser Levy Recreation Center, a thick, steel floodgate on wheels can close in response to flooding, forming a continuous protective wall against surges.

At more than 16ft, this gate is designed to withstand surges far higher than what Sandy brought.

From within the park, plants and foliage disguise much of the floodwall.

Engineers raised the water’s edge by several feet. Here, a raised water wall abuts a section of East River Park that has not yet been updated.

Officials built new pedestrian walkways over the FDR highway; the Delancey Street Bridge, seen here, was manufactured in Italy and installed in one day.

The new John V Lindsay East River Park features tennis and basketball courts.

The park sits across from thousands of units of low- and middle-income public housing.

The competition to select the park’s design ‘was extremely collaborative with community’, Chester said.

Construction on other sections of the East Side Coastal Resiliency project remains ongoing, with the project slated for completion in 2026.

‘The project could have just been a wall that cut the community off from the waterfront,’ Chester said. ‘However, this is a project that brings the community to the water.’