Last week, we noted that the East River Park rehabilitation project appears certain to miss another deadline. On the Parks Department web site, an advisory still points towards a “fall 2011” reopening of the promenade, which has now been closed for a decade. We also noticed a barge owned by the city’s beleaguered contractor, Pile Foundation Construction Company, had disappeared.
A reader left a comment saying the company had “gone into receivership” and that the new company “has to go through 10 city agencies when they need supplies.” We contacted the Parks Department press office for an update. According to a spokesman, Pile Foundation, which has been fined by state regulators on numerous occasions, has finished its part of the East River project.
The remaining work will be conducted by the city’s landscaping contractor, we were told. The spokesman added that the promenade would reopen by “the end of the year.” Incidentally, at midday today we noticed the Pile Foundation barge (which had been anchored just south of the Williamsburg Bridge for many months), several hundred feet away, near Pier 36. There was no sign, however, of any activity on the esplanade landscaping project — no work crews anywhere in sight.
