Pier 17 has announced the inaugural lineup of free programming and events to be offered in the new community spaces at the year-round cultural destination located within Hudson River Park between West 14th and West 17th Streets. Starting this spring, Pier 57 will host a wide range of family-friendly programming from the Children’s Museum of the Arts, The Coding Space, Counseling in Schools, MoMath, Smartworks and Street Lab.
The programming will take place in a series of new community spaces, which are provided to community organizations and nonprofits free of charge with the support of Google. The community spaces are designed to promote gathering, dialogue and learning, and are bookable by local groups through the Pier 57 website. The specific programming schedule will be shared on the Pier 57 website later in March, in advance of opening.
“Pier 57 has created welcoming, community-focused spaces where the public can relax, learn, eat and enjoy — our goal from the start when we began planning to revitalize the pier,” said Noreen Doyle, president and CEO, Hudson River Park Trust. “The diverse spaces and programs including Hudson River Park’s own environmental Discovery Tank will serve park-goers of all ages in state-of-the-art facilities housed within a historic pier, all within one of the largest waterfront parks in New York City.”
The Children’s Museum of the Arts, a nonprofit organization focused on uniting children and artists to create and share works of art with their communities, will bring a drop-in arts program to the Pier. Led by the Museum’s Experimental Arts Education Residents, “Open Studio” encourages mentorship and creative collaboration for young people with varying degrees of artistic exposure. Designed for children in grades 3 to 5, this program allows young people to forge bonds with artists and participate in material investigations.
The Coding Space, an after-school and summer coding program for kids and teens, will provide a series of workshops covering Scratch and JavaScript for children ages 6-13. The programs are designed to build critical thinking and problem-solving skills while simultaneously teaching children to code.
Counseling in Schools, a social services organization focused on supporting the emotional and social well-being of New York City school communities, will provide a series of emotional learning engagement activities including arts-based group activities like music and dance for children and adults.
MoMath, the National Museum of Mathematics, will bring an interactive, human-scale floor maze to the Pier. Designed to stimulate inquiry, the maze will illuminate how math can be used to help understand complex structures in a simpler way.
Smartworks, which designs and provides arts education programs to New York City 3K to grade 12 students, will provide a series of art enrichment programs, including finger puppetry, pop-up card making for beginners, ukulele jam sessions for adults, and early childhood music development classes.
Street Lab, a nonprofit that creates and shares programs for public space across New York City, will bring a wide range of programming to the Pier, including Draw NYC, a drop-in drawing studio; Build NYC, interactive building stations with Lego and more, introducing people of all ages to works of architecture, design, engineering, and construction; and Learn from the Experts, short demonstrations, workshops, and displays to promote small organizations.
The community spaces at Pier 57 include three bookable Community Classrooms. These flexible rooms are equipped with modular furniture and audio-visual systems, making them adaptable to a wide range of uses and events. The classrooms are tech-enabled with a 98-inch main presentation display with touch capability, open platform conferencing, wired and wireless laptop and microphone capabilities, and a lectern with built-in technology. The Community Classrooms also contain front and back conferencing cameras and in-ceiling speakers and an LED film on classroom windows that can be turned on for privacy if desired during events or programs.
In addition to the Community Classrooms, Pier 57 will also include a 7,400-square-foot public gathering place called the Living Room located on the ground floor of the Pier’s southern edge. The Living Room will include seating and tables for people to connect and gather, providing visitors with views of nearby Little Island, lower Manhattan and Hudson River.
