The downtown public space formerly known as Liberty Plaza Park (above) shook off its construction-fence shackles at Liberty Street and Broadway earlier today?ahead of schedule, it would seem?and got a new name in the process: Zuccotti Park, after John Zuccotti, a guy with major real estate bona fides (Brookfield Properties, Real Estate Board of New York, ex-deputy mayor of NYC, ex-chairman of City Planning). But perhaps even more recognizable than ol' J.Z. is the anonymous businessman of "Double Check," (below) the life-size bronze sculpture that survived 9/11, and now returns to its perch within sight of ground zero. More shots of the privately owned blockwide park, which sits on a 2-degree incline, after the jump.
The park was barely open a few hours, and already the chess players were out as if they'd been regulars there all along.
The clear strips on the ground are "500 thin, rectangular, in-ground fluorescent lights, specially designed to be water- and air-tight, as well as easily replaceable," according to the LMDC.
The shrouded Deutsche Bank Building, at 130 Liberty St., looms in the background, awaiting its fate.
· Brookfield Properties Re-Opens Lower Manhattan Park Following $8 Million Renovation [Market Wire]
· Familiar Figure Reclaims His Seat, and He's Not Moving [NYT]
· Liberty Park & famed sculpture spruced up [NYDN]
· Liberty Plaza Park Renovation: Explaining It to the Aussies [Curbed]