The Macombs Dam park ensemble consists of a variety of lush, contemporary green spaces in which the community can relax, socialize, and play. One segment of the landscape is a 13 acre park on the roof of the stadium parking structure, the largest full-service rooftop park every built by the City; another segment is an at-grade park where the now demolished Yankee Stadium used to stand. The rooftop park consists of an eight lane running track named after Olympian coach Joe Yancey, as well as a combination football/soccer field, 500-600 seat grandstand, comfort station, handball courts, basketball courts, adult fitness center, grassy knolls and a sledding slope. Heritage Field is perhaps the most highly anticipated piece of this South Bronx miracle: softball, little league and a regulation public baseball field where neighborhoods kids can play in the footprints of Babe Ruth. The Stantec/Thomas Balsley Associates team has composed heavily planted landforms and bioswales which define the edges of the sports fields and give the appearance of a place carved into the woodland. This extraordinary park has transformed a concrete behemoth into a verdant multipurpose greensward honoring its Yankee heritage.
Perk Park
Originally completed in 1972, Perk Park is a vestige of IM Pei’s urban renewal plan. It was built in an era when the street was seen as a menace so parks turned inward. Rolling berms around the edges and sunken areas in the middle, filled with concrete retaining walls, reflected that era. Not surprisingly, the park fell into decline; abandoned by the neighborh...
Balsley Park
Located on Manhattan’s West Side, Balsley Park, formerly known as Sheffield Plaza, has been transformed from a barren, lifeless plaza into the community’s most cherished common ground.
Following public outcry and many failed attempts to redesign the plaza, Thomas Balsley Associates was hired to build community consensus around a new park-like image and ...
Nelson Mandela Park Master Plan
Identified by the City as one of its “Big Five” open space projects, the conceptual master plan for Nelson Mandela Park will create a much-needed central open space for the city’s south district, an industrial area along the waterfront that is home to a growing and increasingly diverse population. Here the city seeks to transcend its current park paradigm of l...
Chelsea Waterside Park
In 1986, Thomas Balsley Associates was asked by the Chelsea Waterside Park Association to translate this community’s vision for a waterfront park into a design document that would be used to plan the new Route 9-A and the proposed Hudson River Park. Ten years later, when funding for the Chelsea Waterside Park was identified, Thomas Balsley Associates won an in...