New York City's Little Island

time for some island hopping coming up a visit to that new york city classic coney island but to begin martha tysner takes us to a tiny spot making a very big splash it looks like something a child might have imagined a mirage of an island floating above the hudson river eccentric over the top fun leaving the city going to all little island is billionaire barry diller and his wife fashion designer diane von furstenberg's 260 million dollar present to the city of new york topped not by a bow but a man-made magic mountain i kept saying no make it higher make it higher what i didn't realize is when you get up here and you look around it's so glorious call it the pinnacle of barry diller's ambition what i would say is could we build something that could be kind of an icon for the city an icon of new york by looking at it instantly everybody knows what it is that was and that's that definitely is happening that was the direction because of those things on top of the concrete pilings referred to as tulips 132 of them all different shapes and sizes holding little island up designed by british architect thomas heatherwick this was an area where you could really see the height of the columns into the water this is your favorite spot yeah von furstenberg's favorite spot is the 687 seat amphitheater what you feel when you're here is just gratefulness and gratitude and happiness and judging from the reaction to a concert here it's a joyful place to get over covered confinement if this is now take a look at then the old pier 54 in its historic heyday the ship carrying the survivors of the titanic docked here a few years later the lusitania began its doomed voyage from the very same spot superstorm sandy 2012 did in pier 54. like so much of manhattan's west side waterfront it was derelict and had been deteriorating for decades the waterfront was really decrepit and the piers that were crumbling you see michael kimmelman is the architecture critic for the new york times the story of the west side became the story of manhattan's reinvention and the west side here came to be reinvented as a park essentially before little island dvf and bd as they refer to each other poured 40 million dollars into the high line an abandoned elevated railroad a few blocks away that was turned into a park so popular it's been widely copied will they be building little islands all over the place yeah i don't know that other people will because almost no public money was spent you know that's difficult to do in other cities in his review michael kimmelman a fan of little island raises the question should billionaires be remaking public spaces we can't just rely on rich people and their sense that they want to build something and where they decide to build it to build an equitable fair healthy city that doesn't mean that this park however is not an asset for everyone in the city we're lucky we've got resources so we could build something that was unexpected do we have the right to no but in fact this was a torn down pier in which nothing but a flat space was going to replace it and visitors seem to like what they got instead it's a gathering space for everyone because that's what we need right now i love it i think i like the landscape of it and i like the different levels so up here you can dance to the music down there diller and vod ferstenberg have pledged another 120 million dollars to maintain the park and pay for programming over the next 20 years why did the two of you decide to put your money on the west side of manhattan as opposed to endowing a hospital wing or something like that but i love public spaces they're not curing a disease but they allow civic life to to be better i see people happy walking across that bridge in huge numbers and it makes them really happy and all they do is smile at dusk the amphitheater fills up maybe the most photogenic spot on a camera-ready island the nightly show is the sunset over the high city here on little island a place to look and laugh and kiss until the sun is gone and then just turn around and watch the moon rise over the city you

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 314,239

Keywords: CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, news, new york city, little island, derelict pier, hudson river, public space, performance, venue, concrete pilings, tulips, martha teichner, billionaire, barry diller, wife, fashion designer, diane von furtsenberg, present

Id: RZ6kxYxyvI4

Length: 6min 20sec (380 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 25 2021