Peck Slip Park is a vital public asset in a neighborhood with few green spaces and open play areas for children.
The two-block-long park was built on the site of Peck Slip, between South and Water Streets, in the South Street Seaport Historic District. A plan for the park designed by Quennell Rothschild & Partners was approved in 2018, and the rebuilt park opened to the public in 2020.
At the community’s request, the park was designed to be mostly an open plaza with garden beds on the periphery. With two schools adjacent to the park, the neighborhood wanted to prioritize play space for children.
The plan approved by the Parks Dept. and the Landmarks Preservation Commission was to have trees on the north side of the park, with grasses and a few low-growing perennials under the trees and filling the rest of the beds.
But the initial landscaping in the garden proved problematic. While the handful of trees survived, the grasses and other plantings were spottily established, not watered, and not weeded. In the summer of 2021 the weeds grew so high it looked like a prairie. Several subsequent plantings died for lack of water. By 2022 the garden areas were mostly hard-packed dirt and weeds.
In the spring of 2023, Nathan Urry, the Parks Dept. gardener for our area, working with the Friends of Peck Slip Park, undertook a replanting of the garden areas. The Parks Dept. provided more than 100 native shrubs and perennials. Friends of Peck Slip Park worked with Nate to identify plants that were appropriate and get them in the ground and well-established.
Friends of Peck Slip Park has continued to tend the garden, weeding and watering regularly, as well as protecting shrubs and vulnerable perennials with temporary wire fencing and signage to encourage dog owners to keep their dogs out of planted areas in the park.
peckslipfriends.org 