Raquel Richter

Battery Park is a constructed appendage to the city of Manhattan, sitting at the edge of the oldest settlement on the island, below the original settlement of "New Amsterdam." The park is spread over fourteen acres and serves several user groups. While the park is often active, especially on the peripheries, by increasing the density and by overlapping programs, the site could more actively support the surrounding community by more fully utilizing the expanse of land it occupies. This is executed by creating new dynamic relationships between recreation and growing spaces and by bringing production back into the lives of urban dwellers. Rethinking the use of infrastructure below Battery Park, which was inundated by seawater during Hurricane Sandy and remains at risk to future storm conditions, provides the opportunity to also link users more intimately with water, create new public waterfront spaces, and be more resilient to rising sea levels and storm water. Productive spaces can not only house recreational spaces, but also support their programming and sustainability. As a test case for other urban recreational spaces, this thesis negates the ethos that farming is a rural endeavor and expresses the hope that urban farm parks can relink urban dwellers and fresh food.