Most New Yorkers have to travel to reach the waterfront. Residents at One Manhattan Square are already there. Pier 35 begins just across the street and offers a direct line to the East River and the northern anchor of the city’s two-mile public esplanade.
Originally a stretch of shipping piers and industrial slipways, Manhattan’s East River edge was reimagined in the 2000s as part of a city-backed effort to return public access to the shoreline. The East River Waterfront Esplanade now stretches two miles along that edge, from the Battery up towards the Manhattan Bridge. Designed in phases over more than a decade, it threads together widened walkways, planted medians, leaning railings, and weatherproof seating. Most of it runs beneath the FDR, with block-by-block variations: fenced dog runs, fixed cafe tables, raised lighting, and long winding paths. The views shift as you move, from open river to traffic overhead to glimpses of bridges and skyline. The line holds all the way north until ending at Pier 35.
Once a working ferry dock, Pier 35 sat underused for decades. Its transformation from infrastructural leftover to waterfront greenspace began in the 2010s. The final segment introduces open lawns, tiered concrete seating, a raised swing canopy, and Mussel Beach — an engineered tidal habitat of mussel-friendly boulders and textured concrete that catches and releases water with the tide. From above, it reads like sculpture: coarse textures, irregular levels, grasses that respond to the wind.
Along the northern edge of the site, a massive steel screen holds one of the city’s largest green walls. Planted with Boston ivy, Virginia creeper, honeysuckle, trumpet vine, and English ivy, it softens wind exposure and conceals a sanitation facility behind it. The lighting scheme, mostly consisting of embedded LEDs under benches and subtle floodlights along the canopy, does not employ poles along the water’s edge, allowing for unobstructed river views.
Plans are underway to extend Pier 35’s utility into the water itself. In partnership with the nonprofit +POOL, the city will install a 9,000-square-foot floating pool just offshore, using filtered East River water, for public swimming during the hottest months. The multizone structure will operate seasonally and is expected to debut in summer 2025, pending the results of ongoing water quality testing.
New Yorkers utilize the newly opened Pier 35 differently depending on the hour. Some mornings it’s joggers; some afternoons, remote workers on a lunch break with fresh sushi from the Brooklyn Fare market at the base of One Manhattan Square itself. For residents, it’s something they pass through on their way out, or a route for looping back home after a session at the gym.
Extell Developments’ One Manhattan Square holds its amenities vertically — pool, sauna, squash court, garden terrace. Pier 35 isn’t part of the property, but it might as well be. From private spa to public shoreline in under five minutes. Inquire about living along Manhattan’s waterfront with One Manhattan Square’s sales team.