The green space ledger
Resiliency construction here trades parkland for protection, temporarily during the work and permanently in the rebuilt designs. The trade is measurable: the agencies' own documents state lawn square footage and tree counts. This page keeps those numbers in one place.
500
mature trees the BPCA estimates the North/West project will remove, against 435 in the environmental review; removals began in spring 2026 and continue reach by reach, with 525 replacements promised
Wagner Park's lawn, in the BPCA's own square feet
The first rebuild design roughly halved the lawn. After objections from elected officials and CB1, an August 2022 revision restored most of it, and that revision is what got built. Even so, the built lawn is about 11 percent smaller than the one it replaced.
The BPCA announced the revision as an increase of 12,800 square feet and a 74 percent gain, both true against its own first proposal, not against the park people had. The revision also removed nearly 7,000 square feet of planned hardscape and added about 10 trees. On trees, the rebuilt park holds 139 new trees against the 187 the old park had, 48 fewer, and new plantings will take years to give the shade the mature ones did.
- BPCA presentation to CB1 Environmental Protection Committee, with the square-foot figures (archived copy; BPCA has no public link)
- BPCA announces additional lawn space and trees, press release with the 12,800 sq ft and 74 percent figures
- Wagner Park has reopened, with the 139-versus-187 tree count, Tribeca Citizen
South Cove, 2022 and 2026
South Cove's shade in May 2022, and tree removal there for the North/West project in April 2026.
The North/West tree removals
The number of trees to be removed grew between the environmental review and the work itself, and the removals ran ahead of the promised replacements by years.
The BPCA's arithmetic shows a net gain of 25 trees. The court that dismissed the residents' lawsuit in late June 2026 credited that claim. What the arithmetic does not carry: the removed trees were mature canopy, some decades old, cut from spring 2026 on, some on Earth Day, with more of the South Esplanade's still to come, and the promised 525 arrive as plantings at a completion date now set at late 2030. The gap between a shaded esplanade and a net-positive spreadsheet is where the neighborhood will live for years.
- Residents fighting to save hundreds of mature trees, ABC7, with the 435-to-500 growth
- Resiliency Project Lawsuit is Dismissed, The Broadsheet, on the credited net-gain claim
- North/West project page, BPCA
- BPCA presentation to the Gateway Tenants Association, with the South Esplanade's removals still anticipated
Cut and kept
North Cove's planting beds in May 2026, and trees kept at Albany Place, wrapped against the work.
Still being assembled
- needs source A count for the mature trees removed in The Battery for the wharf and underpass work. No agency document we hold states one; it is a records-request target.
- resident-observed The Astroturf strip on the West Street Esplanade, installed as interim community space: unmaintained, unshaded, without seating. Dated photos to come.
- documented The size of the 525 replacement trees, which determines how many decades the canopy takes to return: the BPCA's project site says about one third of the trees to be replanted will be 4 to 8 inches in trunk caliper, "several years old at the time of planting," and the rest 3-inch caliper or multitrunk trees of 8 to 14 feet.