Eleven years after Hurricane Sandy devastated many parts of New York City, Curbed reporter Christopher Bonanos toured Manhattan’s eastern coast with Rohit Aggarwala, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and its chief climate officer, to learn more about New York’s resiliency developments along the East River. The different projects along the coast primarily stem from the BIG U – BIG’s resiliency plan meant to protect 10 miles of continuous low-lying geography that compromise an incredibly dense, vibrant and vulnerable urban area. One of the projects that came out of the BIG U, the East Side Coastal Resiliency project, completed its first section at Stuyvesant Cove Park in September 2023. The full project, designed by BIG and led by NYC Department of Design & Construction, is scheduled for completion by 2026.
