The project, now nicknamed the Lowline, seeks to transform an
abandoned trolley terminal into New York City’s first underground
community green space, beneath one of the least green areas of the
city, the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Shortly after I was introduced to the forgotten Williamsburg trolley
terminal in 2009, I hatched a plan to install solar technology in the
site, enabling plants and trees to grow. Dan Barasch of the social
innovation think tank Pop Tech was separately exploring a project
to install underground art in the New York City subway system and
over too much wine one night we agreed to explore the idea of an
‘underground park’ in earnest.
The one-acre (0.4ha) former Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal, just
below Delancey Street, opened in 1908 for trolley passengers, but has
been unused since 1948 when the trolley service was discontinued.
Despite six decades of neglect, the space still retains some incredible
features, such as remnant cobblestones, crisscrossing rail tracks and
vaulted ceilings. It is also next to the JMZ subway track at the Essex
Street subway stop, so park visitors and subway riders would interact
daily. This hidden historic site presents a unique opportunity to reclaim
unused space for public good, providing a beautiful respite and a cultural
attraction in one of the world’s most dense, exciting urban environments.
The solar technology we propose involves the creation of a remote
skylight composed chiefly of a solar collection dish, a ‘heliotube’ and
a distribution dish. The collection and distribution dishes are both
parabolic reflectors. The collection dish is connected to a mechanism
which tracks the transit of the sun across the sky, so as to maximise the
intensity of light falling upon it. The heliotube is a bundle of optical
fibres that channel the collected sunlight from the collection dish to the
distribution dish. Unlike a typical skylight, the heliotube means that the
two dishes do not need to be adjacent to one another.
This approach provides two key advantages over artificial illumination:
the transported light contains the frequencies necessary for enabling
plants and trees to grow, while harmful UV rays are filtered out, and no
power is required to sustain the illumination during periods of sunlight.
Natural light passes through a glass shield above the parabolic
collector, is then reflected and gathered at one focal point, and directed
underground. The sunlight is transmitted on to a reflective surface on
the distributor dish underground, and in turn transmitted into the space.
Sun trackers would determine and follow the best angle throughout the
day. This technology would transmit the necessary wavelengths of light
to support photosynthesis.
Below ground, a fluid metallic roof structure made of bright-coloured
modular hexagonal pieces drapes over the public space. It is
A walk in the undergrowth
Former NASA engineer James Ramsey outlines his practice Raad Studio’s plan to use solar technology to illuminate New York’s first
underground park, located in an abandoned trolley terminal in Manhattan’s Lower East Side