== External links ==
== External links ==
* https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/01/business/marketing-real-estate-with-art-427587.html
* https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/21/arts/bold-sculpture-for-wide-open-spaces.html
* https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/21/arts/bold-sculpture-for-wide-open-spaces.html
* https://www.ebroadsheet.com/aesthetic-inventory/
* https://www.ebroadsheet.com/aesthetic-inventory/
There are various public artworks located throughout Battery Park City. The public art program was initiated by the Battery Park City Authority in the 1980s, around the time that the World Financial Center (now Brookfield Place) was built. The public art was intended to help draw tourists, as well as make the neighborhood more attractive for residents and office workers.[1]
Many of the artworks are located at the end of residential streets at the entrance to the esplanade. Others involve design of public space and incorporating artworks at Brookfield Place waterfront plaza area and at South Cove. There also are various sculptures and artwork in the neighborhood’s public parks.
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Upper Room (1987), by Ned Smyth, was a colonnaded court resembling an ancient temple and included a raised courtyard and open-air plaza, located at the western end of Albany Street at the entrance to the esplanade, overlooking the Hudson River. Inside the plaza, there was a concrete table with chess boards, and twelve stools. There was also a small temple-like structure with a pyramid-shaped roof. The plaza is surrounded by columns, made of gravelly concrete aggregate.[2][3][4][5][6]
The Upper Room was commissioned by the Battery Park City Authority in 1987.[6]
Smyth spent part of his childhood in Italy, and his father was an art historian. His art incorporated pattern and decorative elements.[6]
The Upper Room was inspired by architecture of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
The Upper Room was an important outdoor community gathering space during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and over the years, a popular place for birthday parties and other social gatherings.[7]
In 2024, the Battery Park City Authority announced that the Upper Room would need to be demolished in order to allow installation of flood gates as part of the Northwest Battery Park City Resiliency Project, and that there was no feasible option to relocate the artwork.[8] Removal of the Upper Room occurred in November 2025.[9][7]
North Cove at Brookfield Place
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Cesar Pelli, architect of Brookfield Place, selected Siah Armajani and Scott Burton, along with landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg, to design the 3 1/2 acre plaza at North Cove, in front of Brookfield Place. The plaza includes two granite reflecting pools and fountains, and steps down to a lower level.[10]
There is a segment of the Berlin Wall in Battery Park City. The segment was painted by Thierry Noir and is located in Kowsky Plaza, next to the Gateway Plaza apartment buildings.[11] Berlin donated this piece of the Berlin Wall, consisting two wall slabs, to Battery Park City in November 2004.[12][13]
- Rector Gate (1988), by R.M. Fischer, is a 45-foot tall stainless steel and bronze arch at the entrance to the esplanade from Rector Place.[14]
- Ape & Cat (at the Dance) (1993), by Jim Dine, is a cast-bronze sculpture located in Wagner Park, in Battery Park City. It was depicts an ape and cat in an embracing dance, and was inspired by a small 19th-century ceramic figurine that Dine found in London.[15][16] During reconstruction of Wagner Park, as part of the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project, the sculpture was relocated to Rector Park East.[17]
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- Sunrise, Sunset (Revolution), by Autumn Ewalt and Dharmesh Patel, consist of nine triptychs created with aluminum panels and crystal prisms.[18][19] From 2017-2019, the artwork was on display at Pier A Plaza in Battery Park and then was relocated to Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City.
- Justice Reflected (2022), by James Yaya Hough[18]
- The Real World (1992), by Tom Otterness
- Pavilion (1992), by Demetri Porphyrios
- Pylons (1995), by Martin Puryear
- Sitting Stance (1998), by Richard Artschwager
- Eyes (1995), by Louise Bourgeois
- Resonating Bodies (1996), by Tony Cragg
- Ulysses (1997), by Ugo Attardi
