Battery Park City on New York’s Downtown is leading the way in integrated water solutions. Not only does it have LEED certified environmentally friendly Solaire building, but abundant green space including Teardrop Park, which surrounds The Solaire as well as Rockefeller Park, which is across the street from The Solaire. Plentiful green spaces make it easier to manage water because instead of rain running off along impervious concrete, as is the case in much of the city, the water can be absorbed into the earth, benefiting the plant life there obviously but also helping people by preventing combined sewer overflows due to the lessened runoff.
The Solaire has done a lot to be a forerunner in green real estate development and there is much to learn from its developers. The building as a water reuse system onsite which allows for the collection and treatment of grey and black water for drinking and plumbing. It also has solar panels on some parts of the walls and windows, creating a more sustainable, and likely cheaper, power source for the building. Although it may be difficult to install water treatments in all basements in New York’s apartment buildings, especially considering the age of some of them, but theres still much to be learned from The Solaire’s efforts that can be applied to New York as a whole. For example, water treatment can be spread across a few buildings where each building does its part. This would also help to make it more equitable as the equipment is likely expensive and the cost could be spread across multiple buildings.
Another thing New York can learn from Battery Park City’s dedication to sustainability is the abundant green spaces. So much of the area is dedicated to public parks like Rockefeller and Teardrop parks. Although it may be hard to convert a lot of New York into parks, smaller parks, dotting the grey concrete landscape of New York with green, can still do a lot to help with water management.
