East River Esplanade

The East River Esplanade was built in the late nineteen thirties alongside the construction of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive. Because the city needed immense amounts of landfill to extend the shoreline into the river, engineers utilized tons of masonry rubble salvaged from London buildings destroyed by German bombs during the Second World War. This debris was transported across the Atlantic Ocean inside cargo ships serving as ballast, forming the very foundation beneath the path you are walking on today.