East River Esplanade

The East River Esplanade tells a story of creative repurposing born from the devastation of war. When the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive was built in the late nineteen thirties, city planners needed massive amounts of fill to elevate the highway along the river’s edge. They famously used tons of masonry rubble salvaged from buildings in London that had been leveled by German bombs during the Second World War. This debris was shipped across the Atlantic in returning convoy ships that would have otherwise traveled empty, effectively turning the scars of a distant conflict into the foundation for this stretch of Manhattan waterfront.