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TriBeCa's New Pier 25 Offers Beach Volleyball Courts, Skate Park

By Julie Shapiro | September 27, 2010 7:26am

By Julie Shapiro

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

TRIBECA — Beach volleyball courts, a playground and a skate park are all coming to TriBeCa this fall, thanks to the long-awaited opening of the new Pier 25.

"It’s going to be paradise," said Signe Nielsen, landscape architect for the Hudson River pier.

Nielsen was talking specifically about the lilac lounge chairs that will surround the three sand volleyball courts. Her favorite part of the pier, though, is even farther out in the water: a simple wooden stargazing deck at the very tip, reserved for quiet contemplation.

"It’s just serene out there," Nielsen said in a phone interview last week. "You’re right on the edge of the Hudson River — there’s nothing but water all around you."

The rest of the pier will be more active.

A 4,700-square-foot artificial turf field will likely host many local children who are just learning to kick a soccer ball. An 18-hole mini-golf course will include two water features and one hole that requires players to travel through a man-made cave.

The playground at the pier’s base will be the largest in Hudson River Park and will have equipment similar to the recently opened West Thames Park in Battery Park City. The Pier 25 playground will have regular swings, though, not a tire swing.

Just south of Pier 25, a new section of the esplanade will open with a basketball court and a street-style skateboard park, featuring ledges, steps and rails.

The Hudson River Park Trust is deciding between three potential operators to run the mini-golf, beach volleyball courts and an adjacent snack bar. Depending on the weather in late October, the operator may decide not to launch some of those features until the spring, said Noreen Doyle, executive vice president of the trust.

The spring will also bring historic boats, which will dock on the south side of the pier.

The trust hopes to add even more in-water uses with the opening of a boathouse and cafe on Pier 26, just to the north, but that project has been delayed because of funding shortfalls and may not open until 2012. An ecological education center planned for Pier 26 is even less certain.

Nearly five years have passed since the beloved old Pier 25 was demolished because it was falling apart, and Doyle said she thinks people who remember the old pier will be pleased with the new incarnation.

"It’s going to have the same sense of playfulness and fun," Doyle said. "It’s going to be amazing."