East River Riviera!

Downtown waterfront 'beach,' park planned

BY DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Mayor Bloomberg uncorked long-awaited plans to fix up lower Manhattan's East River waterfront yesterday - his third voter-friendly parks project in as many weeks.

The $150 million face-lift - in a mostly gritty gap between Battery Park to the south and East River Park to the north - would include new bike paths, promenades, a marina and even a sandy "beach."

The faux beach is to sit atop the dilapidated Pier 42, off Montgomery St., by 2010. A heavy railing would discourage sunbathers from taking a plunge into the East River's notorious riptides.

"We are about to embark on a dramatic transformation," Bloomberg said of the planned changes, which face environmental and engineering reviews and will likely take three to five years to be realized.

The unveiling comes as Bloomberg, running for reelection, is increasingly focusing his public pronouncements on the kinds of big, beefy projects that incumbents often use to prop up their image.

In the past two weeks alone he has cut the ribbon on a new $12.5 million park on the Hudson River, touted plans to spend $220 million on Bronx parks, welcomed a new $40 million ferryboat to Staten Island and cheered plans to spend $820 million in federal dollars in lower Manhattan.

"Every elected official has the same advantage ... the power of the purse," said political consultant George Arzt.

The $150 million in waterfront spending is all post-9/11 federal money from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

It is also all going into the Assembly district of Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), whose support Bloomberg is desperately seeking for the proposed West Side stadium.

As part of the waterfront plan, the underpass on the FDR Drive heading to and from the Battery Park tunnel would grow 350 feet northward, from Whitehall St. to Broad St., creating a new, decked plaza around the Battery Maritime Building.

The Fulton Fish Market, which is moving to the Bronx, would become a marina for pleasure boats near the South Street Seaport, while new, wider bike and pedestrian paths would connect with similar paths at either end of the new park.

"These are long-term projects that represent the mayor's five-borough economic development plan," Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler said when asked if the projects are politically motivated.

"And he's not going to stop working hard ... just because it's an election year."