Pier A, at 125-years-old the last remaining pier on the Lower West Side, has not had a good go of it. For decades the city, the state and seemingly everyone else has tried to fix up the Victorian structure but every step forward seems to quickly lead to two steps back. But now, maybe something is going to happen? The NY Times is reporting that Peter Poulakakos (Harry's Cafe and Steak) has been selected as the best candidate for a lease on the pier. The Battery Park City Authority, which took control of the pier in 2008, is expected to vote on his bid tonight.
Not that the neighbors are jumping for joy. Instead they seem miffed that decisions about what to do with the pier seems to have skipped past them. “The whole process should have gone through the community at large,” Julie Menin, the chairwoman of Community Board 1 told the Times. “It shouldn’t be that we read about a new tenant of Pier A in the newspaper, when taxpayer dollars are being expended.”
The Authority, for its part, denies it has not kept the public abreast of pier news.
One previously considered idea for the pier that, sadly, seems to be permanently off the table is using it as a base of operations for screening guests to Liberty and Ellis island instead of having them line up by the Battery as they do now.
Whatever it becomes, we hope that it becomes something soon. The two-story structure is just too beautiful to be left to disintegrate. But we refuse to get our hopes up again. Back in 2008 things were looking up for the pier too. Fool us once...
