Project Team

This proposal is initiated by Friends of City Hall Park, 30-year-old community group of neighbors and NYers’ city-wide, who use and love our precious neighborhood park and all New Yorkers’ city commons; who volunteer to assist NYC Parks’ care for the 6 acres of publicly-accessible lawns and paths; who work with City Hall, NYPD and NYC Parks to assure and expand public access; and who lobby for adequate NYC Parks funding with the Play Fair coalition and for urban forest development city-wide with Forest for All NYC.

FCHP floats this rough plan, with future NYPD and City Hall, NYC Parks, CB1 and public comments contributing specific designs to final architectural drawings.

FCHP collaborates on achieving this proposal with Lenape Center’s Joe Baker, Executive Director and Hadrien Coumans, Deputy Director. Lenape Center directors and cohort are respected, leading experts on Lenape history and culture, with frequent academic and cultural presentations, including as Visiting Professor at Colorado College and Columbia University. Lenape Center’s Lenapehoking; An Anthology, (edited by Joe Baker, Hadrien Coumans & Joel Whitney, Brooklyn Public Library, 2023) is a powerful collection of well-written short essays and poems that tell the real story. There are other well-received popular and academic books covering the Lenape homeland that you might know, like The Island at the Center of the World (Russell Shorto, Vintage Books, 2006) and Mannahatta (Eric Sanderson, Illustrated by Markley Boyer, Abrams, 2009), many feature and documentary films and TV shows. Few are totally accurate; many are outrageously inaccurate.

The complete Plaza renovation (including Street Co-naming) is proposed to be sponsored and supported by Mayor Eric Adams, Councilmember Chris Marte, NYS Senator Brian Kavanagh, NYS Assemblymember Deborah Glick, NY Congressmember Dan Goldman, Community Board 1 and City Hall Park Conservancy. 

The project has been facilitated at NYC Parks by Regional Parks Manager Terese Flores, CHP Gardener Brandon Grant, and Manhattan Commissioner Tricia Shimamura. Contact with DOT is Kate Scherer, DOT Lower Manhattan Planner. Contact with NYPD is NYPD Inspector Melody Robinson, Commanding Officer, Municipal Security Section, Intelligence Bureau and 1st Precinct Community Affairs Officer Nick Iordanou.