Support Friends
Completing the remaining portions of Hudson River Park and ensuring its ongoing maintenance and protection won't be easy, but with your help we'll be sure to succeed.
Your membership in Friends is tax-deductible and directly enhances the quality of life in our City. We hope to count on your generosity and support at this critical time.
Why should you support Friends of Hudson River Park?
Friends is the only organization dedicated to the entire Hudson River Park, and we involve constituents from adjacent neighborhoods and Park users from all five boroughs of New York City.
Through aggressive lobbying in City Hall and Albany, Friends has already helped secure over half of the $400 million designated for capital costs of Hudson River Park. To complete the park, we need your help to secure $200 million more.
The majority of funding to build the Park has come from the City and State, but no public funding is used to operate and maintain Hudson River Park. We are committed to securing annual support for the Park’s ongoing operations so that Hudson River Park is never allowed to deteriorate from neglect.
Our tireless advocacy ensures that progress in the Park remains on track. Friends has won legal actions to ensure that construction of Hudson River Park continues. Friends protects the public’s interest in the Park, and we fight on behalf of the public to protect it. Your support strengthens our voice.
Friends’ members are remaking our Hudson River waterfront and improving quality of life for all New Yorkers with our City’s largest new park in over 150 years.
Your generosity makes all the difference.
BOARD PROFILE
Peter Braus
Friends Board Member, Peter Braus, has been involved in New York City real estate for over a decade. Currently, he is the Executive Vice President of Sierra Realty Corp., where his clients include M&T Bank, Reprise Media, Union Square Hospitality Group and The Suarez Restaurant Group.
Peter has also represented such landlords as the Battery Park City Authority; Gotham; Goldman, Sachs & Company; C&K Properties; and the ownership of Brown Harris Stevens.
Peter serves on the Boards of REBNY Retail Committee (Membership Chair); the Alliance for Downtown New York; the International Council of Shopping Centers; and The National Realty Club.
He is a member of Manhattan Community Board One and is Chair of its Planning and Community Development Committee. He is also on the World Trade Center Redevelopment, Tribeca, and Youth and Education Committees and was a member of the Pier 40 Working Group, of the Advisory Council of the Hudson River Park Trust.
Peter and his wife, Kaija Braus, launched our new Stewardship Program at a Tribeca Party in October.
“...The Park's leading advocacy group...”
- The Villager
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Top Stories November 2009
Standing Up for Hudson River Park
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| Friends’ Executive Director, A. J. Pietrantone, and Deputy Director Matthew Washington at a Manhattan Supreme Court Appearance Defending Friends of Hudson River Park. |
On September 15, Friends appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court to defend our 2005 settlement with New York City and the Hudson River Park Trust, which set a time table for the Department of Sanitation’s departure from the Gansevoort Peninsula and Pier 97. The agreement had been challenged in court by community members who asserted that it unfairly forced the Department to consolidate facilities in a new location and circumvented the required public review process. Those that brought the challenge have legitimate concerns about the way the City has implemented the requirements of our settlement and developed an alternative plan to the proposed three-community district sanitation garage, but that doesn't make the settlement any less valid. The City should examine these efforts in a concerted fashion to achieve the best results for all. We hope the eventual ruling by the Court will move all of us closer to that goal.
Read more...
Working towards a better public dialogue, Friends’ Executive Director A. J. Pietrantone spoke at the Community Rally for Hudson Rise, the award-winning alternative proposal for a more economical, neighborhood-friendly and sustainable sanitation garage in lower Manhattan that is the leading alternative to the City’s current plan. Attendees learned why Friends determined this choice is better for the community and Hudson River Park than the City’s flawed proposal to spend $500 million on the Spring Street Garage: a two-block long, 138' high maintenance facility and parking garage for garbage trucks, and a 5,000 ton salt shed across the street, less than a block from residential buildings and the air intake vent for the Holland Tunnel, even though it could affect the timetable for sanitation facilities on Gansevoort to close.
Read more...
Earlier this year Friends also won a significant court victory against the controversial 30th Street Heliport, to enforce provisions of our 2008 settlement effectively shutting down tourist flights by next April, reducing noise pollution in the Park and the surrounding community, and increasing public safety.
Friends Launches Stewardship Program
More than 50 donors and supporters of Friends of Hudson River Park came together at a Tribeca party hosted by Peter and Kaija Braus to launch our new Stewardship Program. Guests heard from Friends’ Board Member, and Sierra Realty Corp. Executive Vice President Peter Braus; Friends of Hudson River Park Executive Director, A. J. Pietrantone; and Hudson River Park Trust President, Connie Fishman. After presentations they participated in a lively question and answer session about the status of the Park, its construction, funding, and plans for long term maintenance.
Friends’ Stewardship Program invites our donors to embrace a special relationship with Hudson River Park and our organization by providing targeted support for the Park, but more importantly strengthening the community’s voice in its design, completion, and protection, and helping to define its place as the largest open space to be created in New York City in over 150 years.
To find out more about how to join the Stewardship Program, click here.
Park Progress 
Pier 64 Community Celebration
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| Friends’ Deputy Director Matthew Washington Speaks at the Pier 64 Community Celebration, alongside New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert C.Lieber, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, Friends Founding Chair and Working Harbor advocate, Captain John Doswell, and Chelsea Watersdie Park Association President and former Friends board member, Robert Trentlyon. |
As part of New York’s Quadricentennial celebration this Fall, we joined the Community Celebration at Pier 64 at 24th Street, just north of Chelsea Piers, marking the expansion of the Park during this special anniversary year. Pier 64 provides a unique waterfront access point to the Chelsea neighborhoods, rising 15 feet above street level and offering great views of the Hudson River both North and South.
The balance of Chelsea Cove currently under construction, including expanded lawns, a skatepark and carousel is expected to open in Spring 2010, with Tribeca piers 25 and 26 opening in the Fall.
Making the Case in Albany
In October, Friends of Hudson River Park Executive Director, A. J. Pietrantone traveled to Albany to meet with Peter Iwanowicz, Governor Paterson’s assistant Secretary for the Environment, Kevin Younis, Deputy Commissioner of the Empire State Development Corporation, and Andy Beers, Executive Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to explain the need for the 2010-11 funding request of $11 million to initiate construction on new sections of the Park. This sum would be matched by New York City and enable work to begin in midtown from 39th to 42nd Streets and on Pier 97. Without an appropriation in fiscal 2011, construction in the Park could stop for the first time since 2001.
Read more about what remains to be done to complete the Park.
Outreach and Events
Friends' Fall Fling Raises Money and Awareness
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| Friends of Hudson River Park's Fall Fling. |
On September 22nd, nearly 300 Friends of Hudson River Park supporters joined us at The Frying Pan on Pier 66a for our 7th Annual Fall Fling.
Community residents, Board Members, donors, and business partners helped to celebrate our work to complete the Park and a record year for attendance in 2009. At this year’s event, Friends honored outgoing New Yorkers for Parks Executive Director Christian DiPalermo with our Park Advocacy Award for his vigorous efforts on behalf of all of New York City’s parks. Attendees feasted on delicious barbeque and seafood, listened to music by the Dave Glasser Quintet, and enjoyed beautiful sunset views and moonlit boat rides on the Hudson.
Featured Photo
On November 7, nearly 200 supporters of Friends of Hudson River Park joined us for our annual Fall Foliage Cruise – our final event of the 2009 season. This picture of the cruise up the Hudson was taken by Liz Hadfield, a Friends staff member. We encourage you to share your favorite Park photos with us. For each newsletter, we plan to select a photo that best captures some aspect of the Park and its community of users. If you don’t see your photos here, look for them in the Photo Gallery section of our website. Send your photos to photos@fohrp.org. Plan to join us next year for a variety of events in and around the Park.
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