Saoirse Ellis

More than sixty years ago the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (marked SITE on map) and dozens of blocks surrounding it were the target of extensive slum clearance. Since then a renewal plan for social housing has been implemented across most of the the area, but a half-block margin along the Williamsburg Bridge ramp has been left mainly as parking lots.

Around the Lower East Side other more restrained clearance projects have taken place, each in service of a great depression-era public: the establishment of Sara Delano Roosevelt Park along Chrystie Street, the demolition of several blocks along Allen Street, and three consecutive blocks of markets on Essex Street (two of which have been recuperated by private real estate).

These ten or so blocks that directly meet the bridge ramp are mostly open space with the exceptions of an apartment building, a police station, and a school.

Recognizing this “strip” strategy, an annex of ten blocks to the east of the given site is proposed. On this expanded site a steel-framed wall, 16 feet wide and more than 3,200 feet long would be erected.

Parallel to this reinforced division, a street-width park strip extend would along the length of the strip, making good on the real estate bauble of the “Low Line” proposal making news at the time of this project.

The wall proposes a framework for transport of construction equipment, as well as an essential base structure for lightweight, short-term housing and commercial units manufactured in a nearby fabrication facility. These particular housing units are intended to stand just one year, a term synchronized with vocational training. The facility itself could offer trade education and immediate employment to newly arrived New Yorkers. Working in the factory could also offer a rent subsody to residents.

The decreased rent burden could allow tenants to seek more stable, long-term housing. Likewise, the ground level commercial properties produced with the same method would allow start-up businesses and cottage industries to gain momentum in an otherwise competitive market. Historically, new arrivals to the city have sought and found refuge on the Lower East Side. By designing for this user, I aim to highlight what was once the program of the city in relation to a user-group now largely excluded from the city core.