Hurricane Sandy revealed New York City’s profound vulnerability to coastal storms and flooding, prompting a decade-long mobilization of expansive resiliency programs. These initiatives have completely reimagined the city’s shores, combining sturdy engineered flood barriers with vibrant green public spaces that both protect neighborhoods and offer valuable recreational areas. The massive infrastructure projects have created thousands of jobs, drawing on materials supplied by states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Texas, whose manufacturing and transportation sectors have played key roles in producing steel, concrete, and specialized floodgates used in the construction. Locally, many New Yorkers have been employed throughout the building process, supporting the regional economy. Importantly, the integration of greenspaces into these protective designs provides critical relief during increasingly hot and humid summers, offering shade and cooling benefits that are especially vital for the health and comfort of children and the elderly, thereby enhancing the resilience and livability of New York City’s coastal communities for generations to come.
With old infrastructure of the West Side Highway looming over it, the Westside park has been raised approximately 30 feet above the Hudson River and features three lines of defense: the Westside Greenway closest to the water, separated by a recreational space, and finally protective berms that shield the structures behind them.
The 60th Street Rail Yard on Manhattan’s west side once served as a major freight hub, linking rail cars ferried across the Hudson from New Jersey to local tracks. Located between West 59th and 72nd streets, it featured six warehouse piers, labeled B through I, and three float bridges that enabled direct transfer of rail cars from barges to the yard.
native plants support local biodiversity by providing habitat for wildlife, increase the resilience of shorelines against climate change impacts, enhance water quality, and improve urban aesthetics and community engagement with natural green spaces.
Using native species is beneficial because they are adapted to local environments, require less maintenance, and contribute to long-term ecological and infrastructural stability alongside engineered flood protection measures.
Native flora such as weeping willows and native plants are being planted along New York City’s waterfronts as part of shore protection efforts, where they play a critical role by stabilizing soil with their extensive root systems to reduce erosion, managing stormwater through improved infiltration and filtration, and demonstrating salt and flood tolerance suited to coastal conditions.
Native flora planted at 69th Street on the West Side helps protect the land behind the shore by stabilizing the soil with deep root systems that reduce erosion, absorbing and filtering stormwater to prevent flooding, and tolerating salt and periodic flooding, which strengthens the resilience of the shoreline against storms and sea level rise
Behind the first lines of defence along the shore are recreatinoal areas. The recreation areas are both for enjoyment and they are also functional: in their width and with their soil, sand and grass they serve as a second line of defence.
The third line of defence is above a TK foot berm. It hosts sprinklers for cooling down and also breakwaters for further protection.
Resiliency projects that include restaurants and bars have generated substantial economic income by attracting visitors and boosting local commerce, integrating vibrant social spaces that support hospitality jobs and increase neighborhood property values while enhancing waterfront livability.
The benefits from resiliency projects are not limited to New York; states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan have supplied steel and concrete materials, Texas-based company FloodBreak has provided custom flood gates critical to coastal defense, while companies like Skanska USA and IPC Resiliency Partners, based in New York, have been key contractors providing heavy civil construction, reinforced concrete, and steel infrastructure essential for Manhattan’s waterfront resiliency projects.
Old infrastructure still lines much of the East River in Brooklyn, underscoring the urgent need for green infrastructure as smoke-filled skies from wildfires in the West darken the skyline on hot, humid days with sunsets over the river. With temperatures projected to continue rising in the coming decade, the implementation of green spaces alongside updated flood defenses is critical—not only to reduce urban heat and improve air quality, but also to protect vulnerable populations, especially the elderly, who suffer thousands of heat-related deaths annually nationwide as heatwaves become more frequent and intense.
An asylee from Africa (he asked not to be identified, but gave permission for the photo) waters a crop in The New Roots Community Farm, 19365 square feet which offers critical services to refugees, asylees, and immigrant communities in addition to local South Bronx residents. The garden grows turmeric, moringa, and hibiscus among other culturally relevant crops.Surrounded by a dense urban expanse off of the Grand Concourse, The New Roots Community Farm offers critical services to refugees, asylees, and immigrant communities in addition to local South Bronx residents. The garden grows turmeric, moringa, and hibiscus among other culturally relevant crops which are distributed to the community on the weekends.A volunteer walks down one of the paths in The New Roots Community Farm in the Bronx, located just off the Grand Concourse. This area is prone to flooding, and outside the garden, roads and sidewalks are often underwater for hours. Within the garden, the pathways slope to direct water downhill and divide it, allowing most water to be absorbed. As a result, the garden is usually dry within hours after a storm.
Surrounded by a dense urban expanse off of the Grand Concourse, The New Roots Community Farm offers critical services to refugees, asylees, and immigrant communities in addition to local South Bronx residents. The garden grows turmeric, moringa, and hibiscus among other culturally relevant crops.Figs collected by (name and location TK) in The New Roots Community Farm which offers critical services to refugees, asylees, and immigrant communities in addition to local South Bronx residents. The garden grows turmeric, moringa, and hibiscus among other culturally relevant crops.Mushrooms (type tk) collected in The New Roots Community Garden.
Surrounded by a dense urban expanse off of the Grand Concourse, The New Roots Community Farm offers critical services to refugees, asylees, and immigrant communities in addition to local South Bronx residents. The garden grows turmeric, moringa, and hibiscus among other culturally relevant crops.Name TK from TK collects TK fruits in the garden.
Surrounded by a dense urban expanse off of the Grand Concourse, The New Roots Community Farm offers critical services to refugees, asylees, and immigrant communities in addition to local South Bronx residents. The garden grows turmeric, moringa, and hibiscus among other culturally relevant crops.Surrounded by a dense urban expanse off of the Grand Concourse, The New Roots Community Farm offers critical services to refugees, asylees, and immigrant communities in addition to local South Bronx residents. The garden grows turmeric, moringa, and hibiscus among other culturally relevant crops.About a quarter of a mile from the Glover Street Community Garden in the Bronx, there is an empty lot just off the Castle Hill Avenue station. Given the dense population of the neighborhood and the need for green space and fresh fruits and vegetables, this lot could be put to good use if transformed into a community garden or similar green space.
The New York Restoration Project (NYRP) began transforming empty lots into community gardens in 1995 when Bette Midler founded the organization by cleaning up trash in neglected parks. Early on, NYRP recognized the importance of preserving green spaces in underserved communities. Currently, the New York Restoration Project (NYRP) continues to transform and maintain over 50 community gardens and parks across all five boroughs, focusing on underserved neighborhoods.A volunteer waters in the Glover Street Community Garden, Bronx, 1,209 sq ft.. Founded in 1982 as a beautification project by local residents, Glover Street Community Garden was fully renovated in the fall of 2018. The reconstruction includes new fencing and pathways, a water supply and irrigation system, a shade structure with picnic tables, movable benches and tables, a seating area, a garden tool shed, 13 raised garden beds, compost bins, a barbecue, and numerous landscape plantings.A volunteer holds a dried marigold in the Glover Street Community Garden, 1,209 sq ft. The garden is particularly known for giving away free meals to students throughout the summer and hosting an annual Día de los Muertos celebration (which the garden grows a bounty of marigolds for) in the fall.A volunteer in the Glover Street Community Garden, Bronx. Founded in 1982 as a beautification project by local residents, Glover Street Community Garden was fully renovated in the fall of 2018. The reconstruction includes new fencing and pathways, a water supply and irrigation system, a shade structure with picnic tables, movable benches and tables, a seating area, a garden tool shed, 13 raised garden beds, compost bins, a barbecue, and numerous landscape plantings.Volunteers sort fruits and vegetables are offered to the community in the entrance of the Glover Street Community Garden. Founded in 1982 as a beautification project by local residents, Glover Street Community Garden was fully renovated in the fall of 2018. The reconstruction includes new fencing and pathways, a water supply and irrigation system, a shade structure with picnic tables, movable benches and tables, a seating area, a garden tool shed, 13 raised garden beds, compost bins, a barbecue, and numerous landscape plantings.Children and their parents lined up around the block before the new school year began to receive backpacks, school supplies and books.Apart from offering residents in the Bronx fresh fruit and vegetables the Glover Street Community Garden also hosts a day offering children free backpacks, school supplies and books. On this Sunday the line for these items stretched a city block and children and their parents waited for hours to receive these items.
Founded in 1982 as a beautification project by local residents, Glover Street Community Garden, 1,209 sq ft., was fully renovated in the fall of 2018. The reconstruction includes new fencing and pathways, a water supply and irrigation system, a shade structure with picnic tables, movable benches and tables, a seating area, a garden tool shed, 13 raised garden beds, compost bins, a barbecue, and numerous landscape plantings.Apart from providing fresh fruits and vegetables to Bronx residents, the Glover Street Community Garden also hosts a day where children receive free backpacks, school supplies, and books. On this Sunday, the line for these items stretched a city block, with children and their parents waiting for hours to receive them.
Founded in 1982 as a beautification project by local residents, Glover Street Community Garden, 1,209 sq ft., was fully renovated in the fall of 2018. The reconstruction includes new fencing and pathways, a water supply and irrigation system, a shade structure with picnic tables, movable benches and tables, a seating area, a garden tool shed, 13 raised garden beds, compost bins, a barbecue, and numerous landscape plantings.Apart from providing fresh fruits and vegetables to Bronx residents, the Glover Street Community Garden also hosts a day where children receive free backpacks, school supplies, and books. On this Sunday, the line for these items stretched a city block, with children and their parents waiting for hours to receive them.
Shiitake Workshop
A Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden. NYRP Urban Ag member Corey Blant and Agroforestry & Mushroom Specialist at Cornell Connor Youngerman led the event.
Mushroom Specialist of Cornell University Connor Youngerman leads a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.A Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.Shiitake mushrooms on inoculation logs in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden where a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held.Shiitake mushrooms on inoculation logs in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden where a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held.Mushroom Specialist Connor Youngerman leads a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.A participant who attended a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program looked at mushroom spawn which would later be added to an inoculation log. The workshop was held in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.Mushroom Specialist of Cornell University Connor Youngerman leads a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.Mushroom Specialist of Cornell University Connor Youngerman leads a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden. Here he demonstrates how inoculation logs are drilled into then filled with mushroom spawn and then capped with wax to initiate the growing process.An inoculation log submerged in water. After the logs are taken over by the fungus which gestate from 6-12 months logs are submerged for 12-24 hours to jumpstart the shititake flowering.
This was a part of a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden. NYRP Urban Ag member Corey Blant and Agroforestry & Mushroom Specialist at Cornell Connor Youngerman.Shiitake participants shiitake mushrooms look on at inoculation logs in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden where a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held.After harvesting shiitake mushrooms Thursday Silverman holds their bounty at a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.After harvesting shiitake mushrooms participants graded their mushrooms into 3 categories of desirability at a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.After harvesting shiitake mushrooms participants graded their mushrooms into 3 categories of desirability at a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.After harvesting shiitake mushrooms participants hold their bounty at a Shiitake mushroom harvest workshop in partnership with Cornell’s Small Farms Program was held in NYRP’s Riley-Levin Demonstration Garden.
Originally conceived as an immersive project to compliment Unknown Spring The Invisible Season was the inspiration for the film of the same name which can be viewed on Amazon Prime.
Immersive Project: While Fukushima is primarily known as a site of disaster, it is much more than that. The media, which only arrived to cover the destruction and left once the story faded, missed the full scope of the region. Created over the course of a decade, The Invisible Season offers an in-depth examination of Fukushima in all its breadth. The nuclear meltdown not only devastated the land but also uprooted the identity of its people. A province with millennia of history and traditions, Fukushima was thrust into the global spotlight as a symbol of disaster, its proud heritage reduced to a post-crisis narrative. The Invisible Season delves deep into this neglected culture, offering a window into the region’s rich past and the irreversible loss suffered by its people
Recovery through art
Four days after the earthquake, Keisyu Wada made the difficult decision to leave his home atop Ogaya Mountain, a remote area that had been subjected to extremely high levels of black rain—radiation-tainted rainfall. Fleeing with his wife and four dogs, they sought refuge in a dormitory in southern Japan. After a month away from what he called his “dream home,” Wada decided to return, despite the dangerously high radiation levels. He believed that living away from the place he loved was not truly living. He accepted the risk, choosing a shorter life at home over a longer one in exile.
Upon returning, Wada began creating art on a tablet to express his frustration. He felt betrayed by both the government and TEPCO, the company that owned the nuclear facility. His artwork, characterized by harsh lines and non-gradated colors, was both a critique of the situation and a lament for what had been lost. It would take years before he could begin expressing himself through watercolors, using softer lines and gentle color transitions. He noted that it was only then, through this medium, that he could truly begin to heal.
When the power plant melted down, the government imposed a 20 km exclusion zone, which ultimately proved ineffective. Radiation doesn’t move in neat circles; it spreads depending on the wind. As a result, some areas outside the zone, like Wada-san’s home, remained open but highly irradiated, while other locations, such as Odaka town, were closed. As radiation levels became better understood, Odaka was allowed to reopen, but only for brief periods in the afternoon.
Tomoko Kobayashi was one of its residents. Her family had run a ryokan, a traditional family inn, for at least 300 years. She was one of the first to return. When she found her main street overgrown with weeds and debris, she began planting flowers, hoping to bring back the brightness of her childhood memories. She continued to plant seeds in the desolation, hoping that one day she would be able to reopen her ryokan. In 2015, the town did reopen, and thanks to the seeds she had planted, others began to return as well.
From the editors of Voices From Japan where these poems were collected: Since the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake & Tsunami on 3/11 in 2011, and the subsequent nuclear disasters, many affected people in Tohoku and other concerned Japanese started writing poems.
Many painful but beautiful tanka, a traditional poetic form of only 31 syllables, have been published every week in newspapers in Japan. Why do the Japanese write poems during a time of crisis? Voices from Japan are usually not very audible in the world. But when Japanese voices are composed as tanka, amazingly, one can hear them as a common world language.—Isao & Kyoko Tsujimoto
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The Recovery of Memory
Winter Reflections
It’s a hard thing to let yourself feel whole again and move on after undergoing the kind of trauma that 3/11 brought. It’s as if by moving on one diminishes the meaning of suffering, forgets those who were lost.
The winter of 2011/12 was a long and lonely one. Missing the warmth of their houses people lived isolated lives in new apartments or kasetsus (government provided temporary shelters.) The days were the essence of loneliness: grey, short, wet and cold. People were surviving, but that is not the same as living.
One night at dinner I overheard a friend of mine mention the first thing she wanted after the tsunami. It was a dictionary. Discovering new words, she said, made her feel alive. Curious to know what others hoped to regain, I asked them what the first items were that they replaced in their lives.
Koji Takahashi
I didn’t really want anything, not for myself. The first thing I bought? I bought a bracelet for Tami. (His then girlfriend, he has married since.) I wanted her to have nice things again. When the tsunami struck I was with her. The waters nearly engulfed us and we only survived because we clung onto downed power lines. Holding onto them, one by one, we waded for a mile until we reached the suddenly new shore. We clung onto a sunken ship and waited for the self defense forces to rescue us.
Aftermath Soundscape
As I walked through the vast swaths of destruction sometimes I’d close my eyes and imagine what life in Yuriage was like before the tsunami came. Eyes closed, I heard sparrows singing and wondered what they were doing in this battered town, where they could possibly still be living. In the distance I heard the all-encompassing vastness of the Pacific Ocean. It soundedlike the ocean I loved as a child. If I was near an evergreen that survived I heard the wind blowing through the needles. I felt lively spring energy all around me.
Eyes open there was only death; all I could hear was the drone of helicopters and the mocking cawing of crows. Eyes closed there was life somewhere that I did not perceive when only seeing.
If Not for Their Hands, Whose?
Before the tsunami struck Tohoku was in the midst of generational change. Mirroring global migration trends, the young were leaving for cities in large numbers, abandoning life in the countryside for greater mobility and opportunity. It was estimated that in 30 years there would not be enough people to work the land. In a day the tsunami completed that trend.
Yuriage’s rice fields were some of the most fertile in Japan, producing rice that has been a staple for thousands of years. Because of the saltwater the fields will not produce rice again until least 2016. The farmers who remain, some in their 80s, most of them elderly, dutifully work the land. It’s all that they know. The summers are stifling with temperatures reaching 38c (100.4 f) with oppressive humidity. Buried in the fields are boulders, shards of wood, tires. If tractors are to plow in the future all debris must be removed by their hands. Nature that once produced sustenance became opportunistic resulting in ever encroaching weeds.
All that stands between the grasses and the future health of this land are the dedicated hands of these men and women.
Original Project Design
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In the 1990s, The New York Times featured a simple yet poetic image every Sunday in the Metro section. The only caption was the date, time, and place (now lost in this selection, though they were taken roughly between 1995 and 2000). These photos captured the beauty and whimsy of the city, offering a brief respite from the news—a refuge from the homogenization of New York. They revealed moments of individuality and charm tucked into the city’s cracks, a reminder that the city remained a wonderful place despite its changes.
As a young photographer with an M6 and a darkroom in my kitchen on 85th Street, these images became my gateway into photography.
19 July 2002 New York City–On a day of otherwise swealtering heat and humidity, Sara Dikra and Chris Lopez took advantage of a late day thunderstorm had a dance in Washington Square Park.
