Landscape architects have a unique understanding of time, needing to envision what a sprig of a tree or a plant will eventually become. They’re patient, optimistic, and, working in tandem with nature’s longer continuum, often wise. Long-term thinking shaped the design of Liberty Park, a tiny jewel of an oasis that was conceived as a counterpoint to the 9/11 Memorial and a colorful camouflage and green roof for the Vehicle Security Center beneath it. Running the length of Liberty Street, the park is a literal and metaphoric bridge that crosses the West Side Highway, connecting Battery Park City to the rest of lower Manhattan. It is one of the few places offering elevated views of the memorial plaza. Colorful plantings, a variety of places to sit, and numerous pathways invite the community to linger and explore this vibrant spot.
Liberty Park was designed by the Downtown Streetscape Partnership (DSP), a joint venture of AECOM and Jacobs, Inc. Jessica Forse of Jacobs, the engineer of record, managed the DSP team of engineers, architects, and landscape architects. The landscape architectural design was led by Joseph E. Brown, along with Andrew Lavallee and Gonzalo Cruz, all of AECOM, and a team of twenty-five others. Port Authority architect Carla Bonacci, assisted by Christa Rotolo, delivered the park on behalf of the authority, which owns it.
If the park’s convivial landscaping is the icing, the cake is its enabling structure: a feat of engineering design that allowed a public park to be built atop the Vehicle Security Center, a state-of-the-art screening checkpoint for all vehicles entering the site and its most security-intensive area. In addition to the site’s natural slope, which drops eighteen feet (5.5 m) from east to west, the park had to accommodate the steep drop-off of the spiraling ramp inside the vehicle checkpoint. St. Nicholas, the Greek Orthodox church on the park’s eastern end, also had specific ceremonial needs. Further, its design had to work around a number of ventilation shafts that lay on the roof or rose above it. To meet these demands, engineers and landscape designers came up with ingenious solutions, many of them invisible to the unseasoned eye.