Just when we thought plans for downtown Manhattan couldn't get much stranger than the East River carnival we chronicled on Friday, comes the Times Magazine to prove us wrong. Clearly praying that Michael Arad's "Reflecting Absence" memorial plan will get scrapped, the mag presents four new plans for parks at Ground Zero, none more bizarre than one from NYC-based landscape architect James Cormer that envisions a tree farm spreading green across downtown Manhattan over the next two centuries, ultimately resulting in the new coastline pictured above:
2200: Bio-Urbia. With rising sea levels and changes in global climate, Lower Manhattan may one day become an island with extraordinary beaches. The World Trade Center site would link the new island to Manhattan, serving as a metropolitan transit hub, exotic water garden, perimeter promenade and nucleus of a global Earth. Extraordinary beaches? Exotic water garden? Honestly, we're speechless. Has anyone told Kevin Costner about this?
· Why Not a Park? [NYTimes]
· Alternate Visions for Downtown Manhattan [Curbed]