New Historic Image Collection: Tom Fox’s Hudson River Waterfront Before the Hudson River Park

We’re proud to share the latest addition to our historic image archive: The Tom Fox Collection, the Hudson River Waterfront Before the Park. The new collection looks at the West Side waterfront from 59th to Chambers Streets, with a special focus on Greenwich Village, in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, as the elevated West Side Highway was being dismantled, aging piers were abandoned and deteriorating, Westway was being debated and defeated, and the first steps toward establishing a public park here were being taken.

Fox was a major player in that movement, as the first president of the Hudson River Park Conservancy, and the creator of the original concept and financial plan for the park. Several of these photos were included in Tom’s 2024 book, Creating the Hudson River Park: Environmental and Community Activism, Politics, and Greed (watch Village Preservation’s program with Fox about the book here).

The images show the dramatic transformation of the Hudson River waterfront from a derelict no man’s land that local residents nevertheless made the best use of as possible. Not always pretty, the collection is an important document of our neighborhood’s history and evolution.

Our historic image archive consists largely of photos donated by the public. Have images you want to donate? CLICK HERE. Interested in purchasing a print of one of our images and supporting our work? CLICK HERE

February 3, 2025