By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Connie Fishman is leaving the Hudson River Park Trust after 11 years to work for the YMCA of Greater New York, the Trust announced Wednesday.
Fishman has led the Trust as president for the past seven years and executive vice president before that, overseeing the planning and construction of the instantly popular 5-mile park along the West Side.
Her new job as senior vice president of real estate for the YMCA will also focus on building — but community centers, not parks.
"It’s exciting and it’s sad at the same time," Fishman told DNAinfo Wednesday.
Fishman, 56, a Brooklyn resident, said she was proud to leave having completed 80 percent of the waterfront park, which stretches from Chambers Street to 59th Street. Two long-awaited new sections of the park opened in 2010, in TriBeCa and in Chelsea.
Much of the future park development depends on the generosity of state and city budgets, which are in dire straits, and that’s part of what made it an appropriate time to leave, Fishman said.
The one project Fishman is disappointed to leave unfinished is Pier 40, a recreational pier at Houston Street that is falling apart and needs millions of dollars of repairs. After failing to find a long-term developer for the pier, the Trust voted several months ago on an interim plan that would raise money for basic improvements through parking fees, Fishman said.
Fishman said she would continue monitoring developments and would be happy to offer the Trust advice in the future.
When asked to pick her favorite part of the park, Fishman said she couldn’t name just one section.
"It’s like picking between your children," she said with a laugh.
For people-watching, Fishman likes Pier 84 in Hell’s Kitchen; for gazing out over the water, she likes the Chelsea section; and for the experience of wandering along a plant-dotted path, she picks TriBeCa.
Diana Taylor, president of the Hudson River Park Trust, praised Fishman in a statement released Wednesday.
"With her clear-eyed vision, tenacity and great intelligence, she has quietly and without fanfare steered the park from its infancy to near completion, putting it squarely on the map as one of the New York's truly miraculous places," Taylor said.
"It is difficult to imagine a more effective leader for the park's unique challenges than Connie has been — the results speak for themselves."
