Welcome to the first posting of the Developer’s Blog @ Riverwalk, a chance for those of us most familiar with all the developments and newsworthy items at Riverwalk to update current residents, purchasers and prospective buyers.
There’s a lot to catch you up on as we’ve been developing Riverwalk since 1997. At that time, Riverwalk consisted of 19 vacant acres, an aging nurses residence sitting directly over the MTA tunnel which needed to be demolished, and there was no infrastructure anywhere to be found in the area—from Con Ed lines and water lines to phone and cable.
The first project we developed 8 years ago was a new soccer and softball field located in the southeastern corner of Riverwalk. We had consulted with many Roosevelt Island residents in numerous community meetings about what types of public amenities they wanted to see, and residents were evenly split between baseball fields and soccer fields. Finally, one of our colleagues concluded that if we designed the soccer field to overlap with the baseball outfield, we could fit 2 different sports on the site. When we cut the ribbon on the fields in 2002, then Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) President Rob Ryan wanted to commemorate all the firemen who had been stationed at Roosevelt Island near Motorgate who had lost their lives on 9-11. Thus was born Fireman’s Field.
Fireman’s Field has since been used by Roosevelt Island residents as well as rented out to various schools for their sports teams. However, the reason we’re writing about Fireman’s Field today is that we’re excited that RIOC is now hosting their outdoor summer movie series at Fireman’s Field. Last week, they showed the Bee Movie and on August 9 at 8:30 pm, they’re screening the Oscar-nominated animated movie, Monster House. What better place to kick back and watch a movie on a 2-story high screen than Riverwalk’s Fireman’s Field with great views in all directions. At times like this, we should probably put a banner on the Riverwalk buildings saying, if you lived here, you’d be home by now.
