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Community Board 7 scoffed at the stout 7,550-square-foot replacement structure city officials originally presented in 2021, calling it “clumsy,” “overly harsh,” and reminiscent of Soviet-era design. So EDC scrapped it the following year and hired Brooklyn-based Architecture Research Office (ARO) to begin anew.
“We were excited by the challenge of it,” ARO principal Adam Yarinsky said, “but also by the possibility of creating an iconic building on the waterfront that speaks to the history of New York City’s connection to the water.”
After several Community Board rejections, ARO’s final design opted for a 3,800-square-foot shoreline structure that will hover above the dock on 10-foot trusses, intended to create the illusion of transparency and lightness the community wanted.
“It’s not fully glass, but part of the advantage of the truss system was that we were able to kind of clip the corners,” said ARO’s studio director, Megumi Tamanaha, an Upper West Sider. “That opens up the views even more at the corners.”
It helps that ARO has some experience in maritime architecture. The firm designed the boathouse on Pier 5 at Brooklyn Bridge Park in 2018 and also dreamed up the plans for a kayak pavilion at Long Dock Park on the Hudson River waterfront in Beacon, N.Y.
The dock house serves as a sort of urban harbormaster’s station. There’s a locker room and changing area for the boat basin’s staff, plus bathrooms, showers and even a laundry area for weary mariners docking after a long journey.
All this is important to keep things running smoothly at the 79th Street Boat Basin. The marina was built in 1937, and is currently closed until 2028 while EDC undertakes $89.2 million worth of major improvements, including dredging the riverbanks to deepen the basin, reconstructing the docks, and replacing the dock house.
When it reopens, EDC says the boat basin will be better equipped to handle heavy traffic. It’s the city’s most heavily subscribed marina and also a safe harbor for houseboats, which are permitted to anchor at the basin year-round.
The dock house will be oriented 45 degrees to the shoreline. That way, “it doesn’t feel as if you’re putting in a building that’s turning its back on the city,” Yarinsky said.
And it makes the facility less intrusive on a very active stretch of Riverside Park, where cyclists whiz by throughout the day and there isn’t much room to lay down a picnic blanket.
“We’re really pleased,” Yarinksy said. And so is CB7, which voted to recommend ARO’s design last month.
It still needs approval from federal agencies, which are providing about a third of the funding for the project. But getting the OK from the Upper West Side community is no small accomplishment, according to ARO.
“What got us excited is that the character of the building actually feels like it belongs to the site,” Yarinsky said. “What it didn’t really have before was a kind of visual identity, if you will, some connection to the qualities of this place.”
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
