Bloomberg Vows He Won’t Abandon Waterfront

Mayor Bloomberg delivers his address on shaping NYC post-Sandy (via Mayor’s Office flickr – Photo by Spencer T. Tucker)

Hurricane Sandy hammered New York City, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his administration’s pioneering sustainability initiatives helped some parts of the city weather the storm.

“The biggest challenge that we face is adapting our city to risks associated with climate change, and meeting that challenge requires us to take a leap into the future,” Bloomberg said yesterday morning at an event with Al Gore, the former vice president. “But I think, as Al pointed out, the good news is compared to any other American city, we’ve got a running head start.”

The mayor cited a $2.4 billion green infrastructure plan to capture rainwater naturally, ongoing wetlands restoration, which serves as a natural barrier to floods, and stricter standards, such as elevated construction and other design measures, that helped homes in Greenpoint-Williamsburg and Hunters Point South avoid harm and kept Brooklyn Bridge Park and a park on Governors Island from serious damage.

The mayor also emphasized that he is “not going to abandon the waterfront,” but that the city would have to rebuild “smarter and stronger and more sustainably.”