Aerial view of Battery Park City, an area bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the north and south, and the West Side Highway on the east 

Aerial view of Battery Park City, with the Statue of Liberty in the background 

The neighborhood includes Brookfield Place, along with numerous buildings designed for housing, commercial, and retail. 

The southern section, which is located in Brookfield Place, contains residential apartment buildings such as Gateway Plaza and the Rector Place  

Traveling north to south, the first neighborhood has high-rise residential buildings 

Nearby is Brookfield Place, a complex of several commercial buildings formerly known as the World Financial Center. 

The southern subsections contain most of the area's residential buildings, along with park space, supermarkets, restaurants, and movie theaters.  

The riverfront park was restored in 2013 

The area is managed by the Battery Park City Authority, that sought to redevelop piers, a project that has involved reclaiming the land, and facilitating new construction around green spaces 

The park is a large recreational space for the community of residents 

More than one-third of the development is parkland 

The area is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, with the Hudson River shoreline on the north and south 

The riverfront at Battery Park City, facing the Hudson River 

The riverfront pier, with the Statue of Liberty in the background 

The plan was to create, co-ordinate and maintain a balanced community of commercial, residential, retail, and park space within its designated 92-acre site 

1985 - World Financial Center  The AIA Guide, describes Cesar Pelli's Wintergarden at the World Financial Center as "a welcome, sunny, barrel-vaulted, palm-filled interior public space measuring 130 x 230 feet, roughly the size of Grand Central's concourse." It has been the public gathering place in Lower Manhattan for concerts, squash tournaments, solar house mock-ups and the exhibitions documenting the rebuilding process for the adjacent World Trade Center site. The Wintergarden itself was severely damaged on 9/11/01 and was rebuilt quickly thereafter. Adjacent to this grand greenhouse are the commercial structures of the World Financial Center, a collaboration between Cesar Pelli and HLW architects; the tallest of these, 2 World Financial Center, the Merrill Lynch World Headquarters, is dome-topped and 51 stories tall. In total there are 8 million square feet of space. It is also the largest year-round free arts presenter in the East Coast.

1989 - The Regatta Battery Park City  The Regatta, designed by Gruzen Samton • IBI Group, is located on Site 10 in the southern area of Battery Park City, and was the first of nine sites to be devel- oped in Battery Park City’s Residential Phase III. The primary architectural and urban design challenge was to take the best advantage of the naturally occur- ring drama of expansive space and sensational light offered by its adjacency to the Hudson River and New York Harbor. To accomplish this, Gruzen Samton • IBI Group designed the donut shaped courtyard building with double high duplex apartments facing the river and the south cove. The design of the Regatta achieves the owner’s goal of creating spacious apartments with unique layouts and spectacular views. Conforming to specified design guidelines pertaining to street wall requirements and height restrictions, the building is organized on nine levels with a setback for the top two stories facing the river. By executing an angled, saw-toothed edge on the northern side, away from the water, the scheme provides eighty percent of the apartments with notable harbor and river views. Sixty percent of the apartments are duplex units, most of which have double-height living rooms. The top two floors set back to fashion spacious, private terraces for the adjacent residences. A large handsomely landscaped courtyard, an extension of the elegant residential lobby, and designated areas for restaurant and retail use, comprise the street level. To bring natural light to the threshold of each apartment, the courtyard is surrounded on alternating levels by a glass-walled corridor. The architecture of the Regatta follows the unique design guidelines established to reinforce the zoning provisions in the special Battery Park City District. These guidelines mandate that buildings have masonry street walls, expressive roof lines and prominent cornices. These architectural elements insure that the Regatta and its neighbors will extend the existing urban fabric and harmonize in scale, color, form, and texture with this grand Lower Manhattan neighborhood.

2010 - The New York Public Library, Battery Park City Branch  This 10,500-square-foot library, which occupies the bottom two floors of a residential highrise development in Battery Park City, was commissioned to meet the needs of a new and rapidly growing community. As a new branch without an ingrained pattern of community use, it was critical for the design to establish a presence that would attract visitors. Open, bright spaces create a welcoming environment for the public, while the design of book and periodical displays, information desks, and furniture facilitates the most efficient circulation. The folded planes of the ceiling guide the visitor’s eye through the library and acts as a physical and visual unifier for the entire space. The most eco-friendly of the New York Public Library branches, the project utilizes numerous sustainable design strategies and is LEED Gold certified.

2003 - Solaire  This 27-?story apartment building in Battery Park City is the first green residential high-?rise in the United States. Sustainable design features developed for this building were refined for the Visionaire and the Verdesian, subsequent residential towers Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects designed for Battery Park City. The Solaire uses 35 percent less energy than required by New York State energy codes and includes such features as occupancy sensor systems for both lighting and climate control. Building-?integrated photovoltaics create up to 5 percent of the base-?building electricity, supplying lighting for hallways and other common areas. Each apartment includes programmable digital thermostats, Energy Star fixtures, and a master shut-?off switch. The building treats and reuses its own water for use in toilets and in the cooling tower, which reduces the use of potable water by 38 percent. Roof-?top gardens reduce storm water runoff by 50 percent. Residents also enjoy high air quality and maximum daylight. Each of the building’s 293 units receives filtered, humidified air. The building’s advanced HVAC system is fueled by natural gas and free of ozone-?depleting refrigerants. Building materials with high recycled content and low or no VOCs were used and a significant number of the materials were manufactured within 500 miles of New York City. Wood and bamboo for paneling and cabinetry in the apartments are sustainably harvested and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. More than 93 percent of the building’s construction waste was recycled. The building was the first residential tower to attain a Gold LEED rating and was selected as an AIA Top Ten Green Project for 2004. The Solaire is one of the first buildings to receive funding under the New York State Green Building Tax Credit. It was also chosen by the United States Department of Energy to represent the United in the 2002 Green Building Challenge, an international conference on sustainable technology.

- Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust  The Museum of Jewish Heritage opened to the public in September 1997. Its mission is to educate people of all ages and backgrounds about the 20th century Jewish experience before, during, and after the Holocaust. With more than 2,000 photographs, 800 artifacts, and 24 original documentary films, the Museum's core exhibition combines archival material with modern media to provide a thoughtful and moving chronicle of history, keeping the memory of the past alive and offering hope for the future. The Visitor's Center was completed by architects Weisz & Yoes in 1997.

2010 - Battery Park City School, PS/IS 276  The Battery Park City School serves 950 students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, and 100 special education students. As part of the city's new "green development" initiative, the school is one of the first to be built under the New York City School Construction Authority's Green Schools Guide, which were developed by Dattner Architects in 2007. A flexible example of a "high-rise" school, the 8-story building's massing reflects the vertical orientation of the program. Public assembly spaces and pre-K through fourth grade occupy the first 4 floors. Shared spaces, such as the cafeteria, library, art and other specialized classrooms pervade the fifth and sixth floors. Grades five through eight fill the seventh and eighth floors. A 10,000sf outdoor playroof opens up on the third floor. Designed to go beyond the Green Schools Guide standards, the project includes occupancy sensors to reduce energy consumption and exterior solar shading. All classrooms receive abundant natural light, reducing the need for overhead lighting. Electricity generated on site through a photovoltaic panel array will supply roughly one-third of the energy needed to light the school. Grey water was diverted from the sewer system, and low-flow plumbing fixtures consume 40% less potable water than a comparable building, Combined with high-efficiency boilers, other equipment, and extra insulation the school reduced its energy costs by more than 25%.

1992 - Stuyvesant High School  Stuyvesant High School was founded in 1904 as a manual training school for boys, and is one of the most extremely competitive public high schools in New York City. Every year about 20,000 students are tested and 800 accepted. Famous alumni and faculty include: Four Nobel laureates, winners of the Fields Medal and the Wolf Prize are graduates as are Tim Robbins, Lucy Liu, James Cagney, Eric Holder. Frank McCourt taught English there before he published Angela's Ashes. The new Stuyvesant building was constructed with the intention of embedding time in its structure. Mnemonics was designed to endow the school with a sense of its own history as well as a sense of the accumulated knowledge and multi-cultural history of the world. Over 400 glass cubes are scattered randomly throughout the entire building, from the main lobby to the tenth floor. Some of the cubes contain artifacts and relics that are evidence of geographical, natural, cultural, and social worlds, including water from the Nile River and a piece of the Great Wall of China. There are also individual glass cubes for each graduating class from 1904-2080, thus weaving Stuyvesant's past, present, and future. The 2003 graduating class chose a chunk of rubble from the first bombing of the World Trade Center, which was located near the school. Mnemonics won the Art Commission Award for Excellence in Design in 1989. Gruzen Samton designed Stuyvesant High School, a new school for 3,000 students pursuing a specialized curriculum in advanced mathematics and science. Our complex design, which incorporates multi-story components for the sciences and academics, physical education, and retail/cafeteria, as well as an auditorium and an outdoor educational area, takes full advantage of the site’s waterfront views of the Hudson River. An addition to Battery Park City, the structure functions as a formal terminus to North End Avenue and an entrance gateway into lower Manhattan. Our designers worked closely with the New York City Department of Education and those representing the residents of Battery Park City.

2004 - Skyscraper Museum  Located in New York City, the world's first and foremost verticalmetropolis, The Skyscraper Museum celebrates the City's rich architectural heritage and examines the historical forces and individuals that have shaped its successive skylines. The Skyscraper Museum is committed to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. Through exhibitions, publications, educational programs, and its award-winning website, the Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. In March 2004, The Skyscraper Museum opened a permanent home in a building at the southern tip of Battery Park City. The facility occupies ground-floor space in a mixed-use project that includes the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and a 38-story condominium tower. The Museum owns its space, which has been generously donated by Millennium Partners, the building's developers. The distinguished firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is the Museum's architect, with award-winning partner Roger Duffy as lead designer. SOM is providing its services pro bono. Tishman Construction Corporation, which has been building New York since 1898, served as Construction Manager pro bono.

2008 - Visionaire  Rising 400 feet above the nearby Hudson River and New York City Harbor, the Visionaire is Battery Park City's last and most environmentally responsive residential building. The 450,000-square-foot project includes a 35-story tower connected to a 10-story base, providing a strong physical presence along the southwestern edge of Lower Manhattan. The LEED Platinum building is the third of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects' residential towers for Battery Park City. The Visionaire assimilates two of New York City's most ecologically advanced for-profit and non-profit properties into one integrated architectural example of green living. The mixed-use program includes 250 condominiums, a 4,000-square-foot local organic market, below-grade parking, and a 45,000-square-foot headquarters for the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy, the public agency that maintains the Battery Park City Esplanade and open public spaces. Energy efficiency and indoor air quality are the most important and fully incorporated environmental features of the Visionaire, which is rated LEED Platinum. The most visually expressive element of the building's energy efficiency is its high-performance envelope, a terracotta rain-screen curtain wall with silver-coated low-e insulated glass and 4,500 square feet of integrated photovoltaic paneling. The distinguishing shapes of the building's massing respond to views, daylight and natural ventilation. The Battery Park City Authority's master plan provided guidance for the building's general orientation, but the particular building plan emerged from internal programmatic needs. The tower's interlocking curves shape residential layouts, optimizing outward views and cross ventilation. Dramatically bending facades of banded terracotta and sky-reflecting glass animate the river's edge.

2004 - Teardrop Park  Teardrop Park is a 1.8-acre public park in lower Manhattan that transcends its small size, shady environment, and mid-block location through bold topography, complex irregular space, and robust plantings. Teardrop's design and construction were coordinated with the development of four surrounding apartment buildings, each ranging from 210 feet to 235 feet in height. In the development of Teardrop Park, sustainability was not merely a goal, but rather an organizing principle that influenced everything from material selection to contractor practices. Based on decades-long research into urban soils and non-toxic plant maintenance, environmental aspects of the park's design include fully organic soils and maintenance regimes that don't rely on pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. Treated and recycled graywater from the adjacent LEED Gold-rated Solaire Building and stormwater runoff from the site are captured in an underground storage pipe, supplying all of the park's irrigation needs. There are two artworks integrated into the design. Ben Ruben's sound piece 'Mumeration', and Ann Hamilton & Michael Mercil's 'Ice Walls'. These consist of three bluestone sections evoke a sense of geologic flux and transition between present time (now) and past time (then). While recalling a natural history of the Hudson River Valley, these sections might also recall the processes of quarrying, or of masonry. But this stonework neither comes from nor quite belongs to any of those things. And because it was never any other built thing, the stonework is not a ruin. Lift, thrust, fold, fault, drop, scrape, erode—our rendering of geologic incident at Teardrop Park is not anti-form, but is also not yet, or not quite form. It is a becoming of, or coming to, form that makes real our relation to landscape as well as our relation to art.. Water flowing on it runs down in the summer and forms icicles in winter.

2004 - East River Waterfront Esplanade  The East River Waterfront Esplanade seeks to improve access to the waterfront, enhance pedestrian connectivity, and create waterfront amenities for public use and enjoyment. The existing esplanade is enhanced, new sections will be created, and several piers will be renovated and redeveloped. This bold and ambitious plan will revitalize the Lower Manhattan waterfront that currently suffers from weak connections, a lack of amenities, and underutilization. The project aims to improve the quality of life for local residents, workers, and visitors alike.

2002 - Irish Hunger Memorial  Together with artist Brian Tolle and landscape architect Gail Wittwer-Laird, 1100 Architect was selected by the Battery Park City Authority to create a memorial commemorating the Great Irish Hunger. On a base of Irish limestone and illuminated glass, the team re-created a rugged landscape comprised of walls with stones from each of Ireland’s 32 counties, abandoned potato fields, and various species of native Irish plants and grasses. From the base’s west side, visitors enter through an ascending passageway that opens into a ruined famine-era cottage. Leaving the cottage, visitors may wander through the fields and overgrown potato furrows. The landscape cantilevers boldly beyond its base, suggesting the courageous journey made by Irish émigrés to America. Within the glass strata of this platform, text is inscribed that recounts the history of the Hunger.

1996 - Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park Cafe and Viewing Platform  Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park occupies a unique site, characterized by its relatively small area located at the center of colossal surroundings. The main function of this public place—and the reason for its existence—is the privileged viewing of the Statue of Liberty and New York Harbor. The design of the park comprises three main components: a pair of allées that brings pedestrians towards the main park entrance; a pair of pavilions connected by a bridge constituting the main building; and a lawn terrace framed by continuous paths and benches. This “Y” shaped architectural ensemble is the backbone of the park, resting in gardens and fields of grass that connect to the Battery Park City Esplanade and to Battery Park. The building is conceived as a large, over-scaled, massive masonry wall split in the center, framing the view to the Statue. On the wall’s surfaces, a variety of brick patterns are displayed following a precise figurative symbolic strategy. This “lithic” formation is used to develop a pair of large public steps that seemingly prolong the allées and bring the public up to a pair of balconies overlooking the lawn and harbor. From the center of the bridge connecting the two balconies, the viewer’s direct relation to the Statue of Liberty is “face to face.”

2003 - Garden of Stones  "Garden of Stones", an eloquent garden plan of trees growing from stone, is Andy Goldsworthy's design for the Memorial Garden of The Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Eighteen boulders form a series of narrow pathways in the Memorial Garden's 4,150-square-foot space. A single dwarf oak sapling emerges from the top of each boulder, growing straight from the stone. As the trees mature in the coming years, each will grow to become a part of the stone, its trunk widening and fusing to the base. The work reflects the tension between the ephemeral and the timeless, between young and old, and between the unyielding and the pliable. More importantly, it demonstrates how elements of nature can survive in seemingly impossible places. In Jewish tradition, stones are often placed on graves as a sign of remembrance. Here, Goldsworthy brings stone and trees together as a representation of life cycles intertwined.

1992 - The Real World  Taking over its corner of the park with gleeful abandon, Tom Otterness' whimsical sculptural installation entitled The Real World is one of New York's most popular public artworks. Cast in bronze, the sculptures feature Otterness' signature cartoonish figures: animals and people, banks and robbers, laborers and pilgrims, predators and prey, all rubbing shoulders in his delightfully loopy narrative world. There is an entire bustling society in miniature including frogs wrestling over a moat, a tilting tower and diminutive workers rolling giant pennies toward a multi-armed idol. Scattered nearby are a giant fist and feet and a bulbous-nosed creature seated on a bench pondering a bound animal that may be his next meal. Even as Otterness' characters erect their monuments and enact their wile, they remain oblivious to the giant viewer. Mixing levity and discord, biology and social commentary, Otterness' fanciful world is always vividly entertaining.

1993 - Ape and Cat (At the Dance)  Although they do not have human features, Jim Dine's Ape & Cat exude the sort of civility and tenderness to which many urbanites aspire. Made of cast bronze, the figures are at once amusing, allegorical, and unabashedly romantic. The work derives from a series of Dine's 1990s drawings and sculptures that follow the relationship of this unlikely but adoring couple. Their shared placement along the promenade lends a sense of intimacy, joyousness, and unexpected grace to the site.

1995 - Pylons  Martin Puryear's Pylons are placed along the waterfront of the Belvedere, near the Winter Garden. The two pylons are opposite in aesthetics. One is solid and angular; the other is perforated steel mesh that spirals upward. The Pylons are designed to be viewed from either land or water; the two forms stand like columns visually connecting the two.

1995 - Eyes  Resting directly on the ground a calculated distance from each other, the two eyes occupy considerable volumes of space between and around them which the viewer is invited to fill in with his or her own imagination, since the eyes are separated from any suggested surrounding physiognomy. Carved in granite, the pupils are not inset but suggested by large polished nodules and an integral part of the whole granite "eyeball."

1987 - South Cove  South Cove is an unusual, meditative recess along the waterfront. Considered one of the country's most significant public artworks, the work is the result of a unique collaboration between environmental artist Mary Miss, architect Stanton Eckstut and landscape architect Susan Child. South Cove encompasses everything from- carefully sited rocks, natural plantings, and atmospheric blue lights along the Esplanade -to the water-racked pilings and the large, arching wooden jetty at the southern corner of the cove that extends into the Hudson like a pier. The jetty gently curves inward, back toward shore, as if in meditation of the city from which it sprung. Overlooking the view is a raised metal tower recalling the prow of a boat or the crown of the Statue of Liberty visible beyond. At once dramatic and serene, South Cove is a place where land and water, nature and metropolis, past and present, gently coalesce.

1987 - The Upper Room  The Upper Room is a collonaded court marking the entrance to the Esplanade at Albany Street. This self-contained sculptural environment suggests a contemporary re-imagining of an ancient Egyptian temple. Inside, it features a long table adorned with chess boards, twelve stools, and an altar-like pergola sheltering an iconic palm tree.

1992 - Mnemonics  The new Stuyvesant building was constructed with the intention of embedding time in its structure. Mnemonics was designed to endow the school with a sense of its own history as well as a sense of the accumulated knowledge and multi-cultural history of the world. Over 400 glass cubes are scattered randomly throughout the entire building, from the main lobby to the tenth floor. Some of the cubes contain artifacts and relics that are evidence of geographical, natural, cultural, and social worlds, including water from the Nile River and a piece of the Great Wall of China. There are also individual glass cubes for each graduating class from 1904-2080, thus weaving Stuyvesant's past, present, and future. The 2003 graduating class chose a chunk of rubble from the first bombing of the World Trade Center, which was located near the school. Mnemonics won the Art Commission Award for Excellence in Design in 1989.

1992 - The Pavilion  Porphyrios's Pavilion is a classical structure that provides a cool place for shade, picnics or rest. It has Doric columns and flat roof; the park and river are on one side and the monolithic glass and steel apartment buildings on the other. According to the Battery Park's website, "The Pavilion acts not only as a waypoint, but perhaps as a metaphorical stepping stone on mankind's journey from primitive to modern."

2010 - Settings  Settings is comprised of ceramic plates donated by the families and staff of PS/IS 276, and members of the larger community of Battery Park City. By collecting and displaying decorative plates from homes and offices located in the neighborhood, this installation brings the domestic realm into the public setting of the school’s cafeteria. While the plates themselves represent individual participants, the wide range of collected designs speaks to the diversity of the neighborhood. The participatory nature of the artwork makes Settings a portrait of the local families, residents and organizations in Battery Park City that support the life of PS/IS 276. Inspired by the belief that early childhood education grows out of the home and the school, this project celebrates the tradition of families and communities eating together and learning from the stories that each person contributes during meal times.

1996 - Resonating Bodies  Resonating Bodies consists of a pair of bronze sculptures resembling giant musical instruments, one resembling a lute and the other a tuba. The sculpture is based on the idea that all physical bodies--including ourselves--are constantly enveloped by various energy forms from heat, light, sound, and gravity to magnetic waves and x-waves. It reflects these forces with a wave-like relief on its surfaces, and invites touching and interaction.

1988 - Rector Gate  Rector Gate is a festive archway marking the intersection of Rector Place and the Hudson River Esplanade. Rising 50 feet high, the gate is inspired by Russian Constructivism and Science Fiction. This artwork brings the romantic grandiosity of New York's early skyscrapers and engineering feats to a human scale.

1999 - Wall Drawing #934 - Loopy Doopy (Blue & Purple)  Sol LeWitt’s new wall drawing for the expansive atrium is the most dramatic of the commissioned artworks at the Conrad Hotel (formerly the Embassy Suites). LeWitt’s Loopy Doopy (Blue and Purple) takes his wall-drawing to a monumental scale. Rising 13 stories above the atrium level and filling this grand space with vibrant purple and royal blue, LeWitt’s Loopy Doopy gracefully transforms the atrium into a swirling aquarium of twisting color.

2020 - Statue of Mother Cabrini  St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was born in 1850 in what is now the Lombardy region of Italy. She immigrated to the United States in 1889 and went on to found more than 60 schools, hospitals and orphanages. She died in 1917. The sculpture depicts Cabrini with two children — a boy and girl — sailing on a paper boat. The girl is a reflection of Cabrini when she was young. She is holding a book in one hand, which symbolizes her commitment to education, while her other hand holds firmly onto the boat, signifying her steadfastness in the face of adversities. The boy depicted holds onto his luggage to face what the future will bring and holds on the other hand a wind instrument invented in Italy, which represents the culture immigrants have brought to America.

1990 - Tabula  Located in the entrance lobby of Stuyvesant High School, Tabula consists of thirty panels of differently colored and stratified pieces of etched marble. The panels are etched with drawings that refer to systems of knowledge, including botany, astronomy, mathematics, language, and exploration. The marble used comes from quarries in Brazil, India, Spain, Africa, Italy, and the United States, creating a "dialogue of matter." Said Stuart, "Tabula is about quest."

1997 - Police Memorial  This granite retaining wall is an honor roll names of policemen who died while active members of the New York city Police Department. The monument includes a fountain and a reflecting pool.