If you had $70 million, how would you spend it to improve the lives of New Yorkers?
In January 2019, it was revealed that the Hudson River Park Trust will be pouring $70 million into a misguided project to create Manhattan’s first public beach. In that very month, the number of New Yorkers living in City shelters reached a 36-year record of 63,839. The promise of manufactured sandy shores is not going to bring solace nor hope to the nearly 17,000 homeless children sleeping in the municipal shelter system tonight.
In August 2018, Mayor de Blasio’s then-spokesperson Natalie Grybauskas said that a beach “would cost millions of dollars” better spent elsewhere, such as “lifting New Yorkers out of poverty and building a stronger and more resilient city in the face of climate change.” A day later, the mayor backtracked and said he was “intrigued” by the concept. No amount of intrigue can erase the irrefutable truth of the original statement from City Hall — money could be better spent to build a more equitable and just future for New Yorkers.
