I have my answer. Battery Park City recently entered into a lease agreement with the Poulakakos Family, which operates a number of restaurants in Downtown Manhattan. Pier A will soon feature an oyster bar, a visitor center, a promenade around the pier and an upscale restaurant on the second floor.

Here’s a picture I took earlier this year of Pier A from a New York Waterway ferry boat (click for larger image):

Pier A - Downtown Manhattan Waterfront

Pier A was built in 1886 for the Department of Docks and Ferries as well as for the Harbor Police. The clock tower, added in 1919, was the first World War I memorial. During my walking tour of Downtown Manhattan starting this coming Saturday, I will share the history of Pier A and explain how the clock, which rings ship’s time, operated.

Zelda the Turkey in Battery Park - Downtown Manhattan

On my upcoming tour this Saturday (April 30, 2011), “Walking Tour of Downtown Manhattan Waterfront,” we may spot Zelda if we get lucky.

Downtown Manhattan Skyline and Waterfront

Tour Summary: Take an exciting journey through downtown Manhattan. Learn about a wide-range of historical and contemporary sites and topics including: Dutch New Amsterdam, the American Revolution, the World Trade Center, the great New York Port, the immigration experience, Battery Park City, urban farming, military fortifications, green buildings and the architecture of lower Manhattan.

During this informative and lively tour, you will also take in the spectacular views of the harbor and explore the parks, monuments, memorials and public art that dot the landscape.

Duration: 2 hours (approximate)

Tour Meeting Location: Outside 17 State Street by the bright orange Keith Haring sculpture. 17 State Street is across from Battery Park and just south of Pearl Street. Please see map at the bottom of this post for the exact location of where we will meet.

Subways: 1 to South Ferry, 4 and 5 to Bowling Green, and N and R to Whitehall.

Price: $15 per person

Contact: Email: nyctransported@gmail.com or call 917-226-6914

Tour leader: Doug Fox is a Manhattan native and a New York City tour guide. He has explored the far corners of the City by foot, bike and boat (read NYC Transported to view posts and pictures of his many urban adventures). Doug is passionate about New York and enjoys sharing his broad range of interests with visitors and locales alike.

Sites and topics we will visit and explore during this walking tour:

• Dutch New Amsterdam and the new Peter Minuit Plaza
• An innovative urban farming experiment that has just launched in Battery Park
• 1 World Trade Center (formally known as Freedom Tower) is already transforming the skyline and the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum will open on the upcoming 10th anniversary
• Battery Park City, a planned residential and business community built on landfill from the World Trade Center site, features a wonderful esplanade, green spaces, monuments and public art
• The Immigrant Experience: The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Castle Clinton
• The growth and transformation of the New York port and harbor: From crowded finger piers that surrounded Manhattan to the massive container ships and terminals of today
• The Hudson River revitalized: A cleaner river has created new opportunities for water-based leisure, commercial and educational activities
• Eco-friendly architecture: New downtown residential and office buildings incorporate the most advanced green and sustainable features and designs
• American revolutionaries: Following the reading of the Declaration of Independence, New Yorkers stormed Bowling Green and toppled the equestrian statue of George III
• Military fortifications encircle New York Harbor: In anticipation of a British attack that never came, the US built a circle of forts on lower Manhattan and the surrounding islands just before the War of 1812
• The Alexander Hamilton Custom House and how duties from the prosperous New York port helped fund the federal government

Tour Meeting Location

We will meet by the bright orange Keith Haring sculpture just outside of:

17 State Street
New York, NY 10004

Here is a map that shows our meeting location:

- New York City releases Waterfront Vision and Enhancement Strategy. Read Vision 2020: New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan and Waterfront Action Agenda.

- Proposed JFK Expansion Would Harm Jamaica Bay – Switchboard blog – National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

- Hudson Yards Update – The Architect’s Newspaper. (New Hudson Yards Website with renderings).

- 200th anniversary of Manhattan street grid. Read article in New York Times and listen to story on WNYC. (View 1811 map).

- City’s ferry service subsidy comes up short – Crain’s New York Business.

- Free Mets, Yankees ferry returns for all home games – NewYorkology. (Delta Baseball Water Taxi service).

- NY Waterway Riders Won’t Need To Ask ‘Where’s The Bus?’ Anymore – CBS New York – (View NY Waterway’s real-time bus maps with your computer or mobile device).

- Neighborhood Improvement District Project Overview: Securing the Future for Hudson River Park – Friends of Hudson River Park.

- Community keeps pushing for more benefits at Columbia University Baker Field development – Manhattan Times. (Specifics of Columbia University redevelopment plan in a Columbia Spectator 2009 article).

- Restoration of High Bridge [video] – Thirteen/WNET’s The City Concealed blog.

- Alvin Baltrop: Photographs 1965 – 2003. (Visit Third Streaming gallery to see photos of abandoned Hudson River piers in Manhattan in 1970s).

- Pier A Will Finally Reopen with Restaurants, Event Space – The Tribeca Trib.

- Seaport Museum flounders, but hasn’t yet sunk – Downtown Express (South Street Seaport Museum).

High Bridge Mountain Bike Course

(Highbridge Park is also home to the High Bridge and High Bridge Tower, part of the Croton Aqueduct system. Last year I blogged about the High Bridge and High Bridge Tower, and took pictures of the New York City portion and New York State portion of the Croton Aqueduct trail.)

Here is a map that shows the location of the Highbridge mountain bike trail. The green pin shows the entrance to the trail at Dyckman Street and Fort George Hill Road. The bike icon shows the general location of the trail:

View Highbride Park Mountain Bike Trails in a larger map

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation collaborated with the New York City Mountain Bike Association to develop these cross-country and free-ride bike trails as well as the dirt jump/BMX trails. There are bike trails for beginner, intermediate and expert riders.

On the NYC Mountain Bike Association website, you can learn more about the Highbridge Park bike trails and dirt-jump park. And view a detailed trail map (PDF) of the trails:

Highbridge Park Mountain Bike Trails map

Yonathan Arava produced and directed an excellent documentary about the planning and building of the Highbridge Park mountain bike trails. You can watch this video on Vimeo.

I often stop at this park when I’m biking along the Manhattan waterfront. The excursion boat pier and kayak launch should be open this spring or summer.

View the following slideshow or visit my West Harlem Piers Park photo set on Flickr:

I would like to know about the construction of the bulkhead at West Harlem Piers Park. I’m especially interested to learn about the white material connected to the bulkhead where it intersects with the Hudson River. Do you know what it is for?

Bulkhead at West Harlem Piers Park

Download both of these documents on the NYC Department of City Planning website.

Vision 2020 is a 10-year plan for the future of NYC’s 520 miles of waterfront and represents the culmination of a one-year participatory planning process. The New York City Waterfront Action Agenda outlines 130 waterfront projects that will be initiated in the next three years.

Vision 2020: New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan

Urban Ranger Jerry Seigler leading geology tour of Inwood Hill Park

The tour started inside the Nature Center, which is right along the only natural salt water marsh in Manhattan:

Nature Center and Salt Water Marsh and Inwood Hill Park

The Nature Center includes exhibits about local rock formations, salt water marshes and other natural features of Inwood Hill Park. The following picture is of Inwood Marble, which is the softest of the three rock layers on which Manhattan rests. You can identify Inwood Marble by its sugar-like crystals and its white or blue-grey color:

Inwood Marble at exhibit in Inwood Hill Park Nature Center

I took this close-up shot of Inwood Marble outcroppings in Isham Park, which is just southeast of Inwood Hill Park:

Inwood Marble outcropping in Isham Park

A picture of Fordham Gneiss in the exhibit at the Nature Center. Gneiss consists of alternating light and colored bands and is the deepest and hardest of the three primary metamorphic rocks that form Manhattan and the surrounding areas:

Fordham Gneiss in exhibit at Inwood Hill Park Nature Center

The Columbia “C” painted on a Fordham Gneiss outcropping in the Bronx, directly across from Inwood Hill Park’s Nature Center. Because of pollution and erosion, it is difficult to see the alternating light and colored bands of the Gneiss:

Columbia C painted on Fordham Gneiss

A picture of Manhattan Schist in the exhibit at Inwood Hill Park Nature Center. Manhattan Schist is the island’s strong bedrock on which skyscrapers are built downtown and in midtown. Almost all of the rocks in Inwood Hill Park are Manhattan Schist. Schist often contains mica specs, a flaky mineral that appears metal-like:

Manhattan Schist in exhibit at Inwood Hill Park Nature Center

During the the last ice age, the Wisconsin Ice Sheet reached a height of 1,000 feet, crushing the lands and forming valleys and riverbeds. The advancing and retreating ice sheets also left their marks with glacial scratches or striations that you can sometimes see in exposed rocks. Urban Park Ranger Jerry Seigler showed us an example of glacial striations on what is known as “whale rock.” These large groves run in a north south direction, following the path of the ice sheets:

Glacial striations on Whale Rock in Inwood Hill Park

This is a close-up of a glacial striation on Whale Rock:

Glacial striations on Whale Rock in Inwood Hill Park - close-up

As ice sheets advanced and retreated, they often dislodged rocks from one location and moved them to another location. This picture, from the exhibit, is an example of the many rocks from the Palisades, across the Hudson in New Jersey, that were moved to Inwood Hill Park. Rocks that are moved by glaciers are called erratics:

Erratic in exhibit at Inwood Hill Park Nature Center

On the Clove Trail that runs through the heart of Inwood Hill Park, there are glacial potholes that were formed as the melting water from an ice sheet mixed with gravel and rock to drill down into the below rock formations. And the result is this glacial pothole:

Glacial Pothole in Inwood Hill Park

On the Clove Trail, you will also come across a number of caves known as the Indian Rock Shelters, which were occupied for centuries by the Lenape. Here’s one of them:

Indian Rock Shelters in Inwood Hill Park

Pier 25 includes a 19-hole miniature golf course, beach volleyball courts, an artificial-turf playing field, a boat mooring, berths for historic ships, a playground, a snack bar and lounge chairs to take in the great views of the Hudson River, Battery Park City and Jersey City:

Hudson River Park - Pier 25

You can view pictures I took of Pier 25 this past Saturday morning on Google Picasa:

Map of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Surrounding Neighborhoods

I created an annotated Google Map with placemarkers and lines that you can click on to learn about Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Harlem River Ship Canal as well as neighborhoods, historic sites, parks, bridges and other features of interest. You can click on the placemarkers in the map immediately below or view this map on Google. (I recommend that you view this map on Google–it’s easier to explore and navigate):

View Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Harlem River Ship Canal in a larger map

Slideshow of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Neighborhoods

Last Saturday, I walked through Inwood Hill Park, over the Henry Hudson Bridge, through the Spuyten Duyvil and Marble Hill neighborhoods in the Bronx and over the Broadway Bridge into Manhattan. The following slideshow includes pictures of this walk and I have added images that I took of this area last summer. You can view this gallery with captions on Google Picasa:

You can view these geo-tagged photos on a Google Map so that you can see the exact location of where I shot each image:

Geotagged Images of Harlem River Ship Canal, Northern Manhattan and the Bronx