If you want to see a park which is really “owned” by the surrounding area, you should visit Battery Park City’s waterfront park. You will feel most unwelcome. And wasn’t that was built with taxpayer funds and bonds?

You start out wanting a nice green lawn looking out over the water, for sitting, for games. Then you need a sound barrier for the expressway, of course, and a boat launch because the water is *right there* after all (let’s add a wetlands, too), and a fenced off area for toddlers is a good idea (with appropriate swings and clambering apparatus), and benches and shrubbery would be nice (we will certainly need shade trees, and berry bushes would be nice to line the paths of the hill–did we mention it’s not a flat lawn? It’s more of a topographical sculpture with granite steps on one side), and that should about do it for Pier 1. Oh, there’s a pond, too. Now, about Piers 2 through 6….