This would privatize two blocks of the park and create two classes of users".
In the last five years, however, it has emerged as one of the city's hottest residential neighborhoods with more than a dozen projects rising within blocks of the park.
Henry Sloane Coffin, the pastor of the influential Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, had been among those who in 1912 urged the city to acquire most of the block for the park.
Barricades were set up at Cortlandt Street, a block north of the park, and at Pine Street, a block south.
The new bill would allow the trust to sell its air rights on those piers up to one block east of the park's boundaries.
The Legislature also approved a measure that would allow the Hudson River Park Trust to sell air rights, up to one block east of the park's boundaries, across the West Side Highway.
A block north of the park, on West 8th Street, is a historic 107-room property once known as Marlton House and home to many writers and poets, who were attracted by relatively cheap rates and the bohemian neighbourhood.
If Mexican is not your thing, here's an alternative: Island Rhythm, a new Jamaican take-out spot hidden a block north of the park just off Fifth Avenue on 111th Street, will put together a feast to go of jerk chicken or curry goat or whatever, heaped with rice and peas, cabbage and plantains.
He gestured at a line of roughly 30 cops, setting up a fresh row of metal fences along the side of Cortland Street, one block north of the park.
Dogs are not allowed to be off leash within a five-block radius of the park's dog runs at any time.
