Working as part of the design team for the East Midtown Greenway in Manhattan, artist Stacy Levy designed custom pavers for the esplanade that highlight the beautiful shapes of organic diatoms. These single-celled photosynthetic organisms live in the East River and are crucial to life on earth, supplying much of the oxygen we breathe.
Levy worked closely with research ecologist Judy Yaquin Li, NOAA Fisheries, Milford Laboratory to understand diatoms in the East River. Levy was also inspired by patterned tiles made by Gaudi in Barcelona in the early 1900s depicting mythical sea creatures. Rather than imagining what creatures might be in the water under the suspended esplanade, she created hyper-magnified images of microscopic diatoms that live in the river so people can get to know their aquatic neighbors and consider their critical role in the ecosystem.
Via joined the design team, led by Stantec, and facilitated an extensive, community-based invitational competition, design team workshops, interviews, and public presentations to select Levy for the project. We then worked with the team to realize the integration of 5000 pavers embossed with Levy’s design – called Diatom Lace – set into clusters along the half mile walkway. The new open space was dedicated on December 19, 2023 by NYC Parks, the New York Economic Development Corporation and NY DOT.
The East Midtown Greenway fills a major gap in the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway between East 53rd and East 61st Streets along the East River, providing much-desired waterfront access and open space for the East Midtown community and the public at large.
