A Huge Leap Forward for Pier 26

hudson river park pier 26 looking eastwardAccording to a pre-announcement made to New York Times, the Hudson River Park has hired designers for Pier 26: “Architect Rafael Viñoly, who has offered to donate his services to design the long-planned science education and research center (known as an estuarium), and the landscape firm OLIN to lead the design team for the pier’s new park.” Viñoly lives in Tribeca and his son, Román, is on the board of Friends of Hudson River Park.

Perhaps even more important, Citigroup is donating $10 million for work on the pier. “Another $10 million came from the city,” says the Times, “and the trust has applied to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation for the rest.” The goal is to have the park finished by the first quarter of 2019.

One last thing: Apparently the Village People shot some of the “Y.M.C.A.” video on Pier 26….

UPDATE: Something was nagging at me about the “Y.M.C.A.” claim—because I think we would’ve heard of it by now—and then Josh commented that he would’ve guessed the video was shot on the Christopher Street pier (which certainly makes sense). I couldn’t find anything online about where it was shot, so I emailed the PR rep for the HRPT about where the info came from, because it’s in the press release, and he basically said “just look at the video.” But when I watch it—and be warned, even muted you’ll get the song in your head—I get the sense it was north of Pier 40 (especially around the 1:49 mark); then again, I don’t know what the piers were like back then. Anyone care to watch it and solve the mystery? UPDATE: Rich Sackmann points out that the decaying Pier 48 can be seen in the background. I think it’s safe to assume they likely didn’t go down to Pier 26.

 

6 Comments

  1. thanks erik. the ymca video was the highlight of my morning. i would have guessed that that they are dancing on the christopher street pier. does anyone know what the dilapidated pier in the background is? my guess is it’s the debrosses street pier which you can still see some pilings of in the water.

  2. The decaying pier in the background is Pier 48 so this video was shot (at least in those scenes) south of that. http://gildedbirds.com/2013/11/28/gustavo-bonevardi/

  3. They also turned around and shot from the opposite direction and for a brief moment you can see Pier 40 behind them (1:49). So it does look like it was made on either Christopher Street Pier (Pier 45) or Pier 46, but in any case, not 26.

  4. makes sense because they shot some scenes with the infamous ramrod in the background which is by christopher street.

  5. Ah! When Manhattan had industry and wasn’t so shiny. I’m gloomin’ here.

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