Once a working waterfront teeming with rail barges, tugboats, rail cars, horses, and wagons, the Hunters Point shoreline slowly succumbed to the realities of the Post-Industrial Age. As the last rail barge headed into the sunset of the New Jersey shoreline, this spectacular site lying in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline and one subway stop from Grand Central Station was left to slowly degrade to a point of shame to the community it once supported.

To visit the site today is to experience one of those rare urban miracles. A trash strewn rail corridor that once slashed through the Hunters Points community has been transformed into a broad boulevard to the river, the first link and access to the waterfront ever afforded this community. At its terminus lies the first phase of a 19-acre waterfront park to be built in increments along with the new planned community called Queens West. It is the result of a unique collaborative design effort led by two landscape architects, Thomas Balsley and Lee Weintraub and architect, Richard Sullivan along with the client’s Senior Vice President of Design and Construction, Frances Huppert, who acted as the team’s advocate with the three public sponsors.

Early stages were devoted to a comprehensive site analysis and photo inventory as well as in-depth historical research into the site’s rich past and its significance to the growth of Long Island and Queens. Simultaneously the design team and client began a broad outreach into the community that would ultimately lead to a working Task Force consisting of local representatives, neighborhood leaders, public sponsor, local politicians and others with whom the design team could draw meaningful programming, planning and design criteria. Early discussions centered on their goals and visions which, in turn, led to very specific programmatic requests. The design team led the dialogue beyond the predictable tug-of-war between active and passive recreation needs. Historian, ecologists, and exhibit designers were added to the collective design team to exploit the site’s full potential in a way that would enrich its community and the lives of those who would come to visit. The final program is grounded in the team’s deep belief that a broad constituency, ballplayers, bird watchers, sunbathers and stargazers, the elderly and their grandchildren will determine the ultimate success of the park and guarantee its future. It exploits the natural shoreline of peninsulas, coves, and piers with rich layers of meaning; interpretative ecological, educational, recreational, cultural, historical and progressive expressions of the future. The subsequent design process which led to the final master plan was guided by this rational program and its commitment to the community’s vision.

This unique park is unlike its corporate/high-end residential counterparts. It is blessed with a shoreline and an intact light industrial/blue collar residential neighborhood whose diversity inspired its design. Its first phase has realized its potential as the beloved common ground for the local community and its new residents, as is evidenced by the newly formed Friends of Gantry Plaza State Park, and at last, has re-introduced the waterfront into their daily lives.

At the outset, the designers were challenged with the following question. Can a park coherently celebrate history, reflect current culture, look to the future, educate, respect it’s river ecology and serve a broad and diverse constituency, all within a compelling framework of space making and forms? The Queens West Parks Master Plan and its first phase Gantry Plaza State Park answers clearly in the affirmative. In a city known for its overly cautious approach to open space design, the Queens West Parks have now raised the bar. In his recent critique of Gantry Plaza State Park, New York Times Critic Herbert Muschamp exclaimed, “The curse has been lifted!”