City Pier A

Pier A (also known as City Pier A) is a pier in the Hudson River at Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It was built from 1884 to 1886 as the headquarters of the New York City Board of Dock Commissioners and the New York City Police Department (NYPD)'s Harbor Department. Pier A is the only remaining masonry pier in New York City. Above the pier is a two- and three-story building designed by George Sears Greene Jr., with a clock tower facing the Hudson River. The pier is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

The building atop Pier A is generally two to three stories tall, except for a four-story clock tower at the southwestern corner of the building. The original structure is two stories tall and extends west into the Hudson River. The eastern, or inshore, end of Pier A was constructed in 1900 and expanded to three stories in 1904. The pier itself is composed of a concrete deck supported by girders. The building originally contained offices for the NYPD and Docks Department, which were subsequently converted into restaurant spaces.

The Department of Docks started constructing the pier in July 1884; although the pier deck was completed in 1885, the building was not finished until early 1886. The NYPD occupied Pier A until 1955, while the Department of Docks relocated to the Battery Maritime Building in 1959. The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) used the pier from 1960 to 1992 as a fireboat station. Following a failed attempt to demolish Pier A as part of the development of Battery Park City in the 1970s, the structure was added to the NRHP and became a city landmark. Mayor Ed Koch selected Wings Point Associates to redevelop Pier A in 1988, but the redevelopment was stalled for the next two decades. Pier A was temporarily used as a commuter ferry landing after the September 11 attacks. After the Battery Park City Authority leased Pier A in 2008, it was renovated into a restaurant called Harbor House, which operated from 2014 to 2020.

Site

Pier A is on the Hudson River, in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City, near the southern end of Manhattan Island. The pier is on the North River, the southernmost portion of the Hudson River, which drains into New York Harbor immediately to the south. It abuts the northern end of Battery Park, just south of the intersection of West Street and Battery Place. Pier A measures wide by long. It extends into the river at a 116.5-degree angle from the bulkhead along Battery Park's shoreline.

The pier is part of the eponymous Pier A Plaza, which opened to the public in November 2014. Pier A Plaza includes pedestrian space and a bike path. It is part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway and connects with Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park to the north. In 1991, the American Merchant Mariners' Memorial was installed on a rebuilt stone breakwater just south of Pier A, connected to it by a dock. Designed by the sculptor Marisol Escobar, the memorial depicts four merchant seamen with their sinking vessel after it had been attacked by a U-boat during World War II. One of the seamen is in the water and is covered by the sea with each high tide.

Architecture

The building atop Pier A is generally two to three stories tall, except for a four-story clock tower at the southwestern corner of the building. The structure is long, extending onto the Manhattan shoreline to the east. The engineer in charge of construction and design was George Sears Greene Jr., the engineer-in-chief of the New York City Board of Docks from 1875 to 1898 and the son of the civil engineer George S. Greene. Pier A's current design dates to 1919, when the clock was added. It is sometimes nicknamed the "Liberty Gateway" despite never having been a major disembarkation point.

Form and facade

The eastern or inshore end of Pier A was constructed in 1900 as a square two-story annex, which was expanded to three stories in 1904. It extends about inland. The inshore annex's facade is divided vertically into three bays each on its northern, eastern, and southern elevations. The bays are divided by one-story pilasters, and a cornice runs above the third story. The eastern elevation contains a large archway on the ground floor (originally used by horse-drawn carriages), which is flanked by smaller openings with architraves. On the second and third stories of the eastern elevation, there is a triple window in the center bay and a single window on either side. Above the third story, the center bay contains a triangular pediment with seashell decorations, originally decorated with the letter "A". On the northern and southern elevations, the inshore annex contains a double window in each bay, as well as a segmentally arched pediment at the center above the third story. The inshore annex is topped by a gable roof.

Just west of Pier A's inshore annex is another three-story section with a flat roof. The central portion of the building is two stories high and extends into the Hudson River. Unlike the inshore annex, the facade of the central section is plain, although it originally contained cornices, pilasters, and decorative trim. This section contains an arcade of segmental arches on the first story, as well as single, double, and projecting three-sided windows on the second story. The central section is topped by a hip roof, with several monitors protruding from the roof, as well as a gable at the western end. The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) replaced the copper roof during the early 21st century.

There is a square clock tower at the southwestern corner of Pier A, measuring tall with a pyramidal roof at its peak. The first and second stories have plain wall surfaces. The third story contains arched windows on all four sides, which originally illuminated an observation room, while the fourth story contains four clock faces, one on each side. The observation room was used to monitor maritime traffic in New York Harbor and was removed when the clock was installed in 1919. The clock was taken from a ship and was donated by Daniel G. Reid, founder of United States Steel Corporation. According to a Department of Marine and Aviation spokesperson quoted in ''The New York Times'', it was the first memorial in the United States dedicated to those who died in World War I. Unlike other civil bells, but similarly to simple ship bells, there are eight bells, one for each half-hour of a four-hour watch. At half-hour intervals, the bell is struck between one time (at 12:30, 4:30, and 8:30) and eight times (at 12:00, 4:00, and 8:00).

Features

Structural features

Pier A was built with a masonry foundation, unlike similar piers of the time, which were typically built on wooden piles. An earlier masonry pier, East River Pier 1, had been built nearby at Whitehall Street in 1875; the New York City government largely stopped constructing masonry piers after captains complained that the piers caused damage to their ships. Pier A, which was not intended to accommodate large ships, was one of the few masonry piers built after East River Pier 1 was completed. The pier building was constructed with a superstructure of brick, iron, and terracotta. The eastern end of the building was intended to store the Department of Docks' records and was fireproof. Unusual for buildings of the late 19th century, Pier A had its own central heating system, gas lights, and water supply system. The building was covered with several layers of insulation.

The underlying layer of bedrock was as shallow as below mean low water, above which was a layer of soft mud, thus preventing the installation of iron or wooden pilings. As such, the mud above the bedrock was removed when the dock was built, and a timber "crib" was sunken into the water at the site of the dock. This "crib", measuring across and high; sand and trap rock were used as ballast to sink the crib into the water. Divers then filled the timber crib with concrete bags. Another layer of concrete was poured above these bags and then leveled off, providing a foundation for the rectangular concrete blocks that were placed above these bags. Eight granite sub-piers were then laid above the rectangular concrete blocks to a height of above mean high water. The sub-piers support the deck of the maritime pier, which consist of concrete arches and iron girders. The surface of the deck was covered with a layer of asphalt.

Interior

Originally, most of the ground floor was a unified space, except for the westernmost and the easternmost of the ground story, where a central hallway divided each end into multiple rooms. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) was housed on the northern side of the ground floor, while the New York City Department of Docks was on the southern side. The second story contained a hallway flanked by the Dock Department's offices. The NYPD used a watch tower on the southwestern corner of the second floor, and the Department of Docks had a record room at the eastern end.

The interior of the building contains an Art Deco-style room that was used as the Docks Commissioner's office. This room is an octagonal space on the second floor with teakwood paneling, and it remained largely intact in the 2010s. When the building was converted into a restaurant in 2014, the first story was remodeled after a German beer hall; there were outdoor dining areas on either side of this beer hall. The second floor became a multi-room restaurant space with a cocktail bar. The restaurant space included a bar measuring long, as well as a stained-glass chandelier with the letter "A". The third floor became an event space.

History

The New York State Legislature revised the New York City Charter

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