Changes are afoot at Battery Park. Not only has its name been modifiedin February, Parks head Mitchell Silver officially renamed it the Battery to bring it back closer to its historic roots and nix confusion with the neighboring eponymous neighborhood, Battery Park Citybut it's also been undergoing improvements with the intent of recrafting it from, as the Times puts it, "a place that looks less like a beaten-up old park with a few lovely improvements, and more like a rejuvenated, modern park with a few rough edges." The biggest thing the park will be able to tout is its long-awaited Seaglass Carousel, which will open to the public after a ridiculously long time, for $5/ride this summer.
Another long-coming change is the Battery Oval, a redesigned great lawn at the intersection of the Battery and Bowling Green that was formerly intersected by paved walkways and now provides a seamless 90,000-square-foot expanse of grass for lounging, concerts, and outdoor activities of the like. It'll formally be available in the summer of 2016 after the grass takes root. Available for the using this summer will be a 1,555-foot-long bike lane extending from Pier A to the Battery Maritime Building.
Future fixes to the park include removing the Coast Guard's Battery Park Building. There's been no talk of a memorial to the late, great Zelda, who strutted around like she owned the freakin' place, but there's time yet.
· A Transformation 21 Years in the Making at the Battery [NYT]
· All Battery Park coverage [Curbed]
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