"Access is being provided through the area directly to the south where HSS' contractor has been working, disrupting their schedule." Steve Simon, chief of staff for the Parks Department's Manhattan office, wrote that sentence in an email to Friends of the East River Esplanade, as reported by Our Town. The sentence explains why the Upper East Side waterfront has a new date. The Hospital for Special Surgery's walkway rebuild between East 72nd and East 78th Streets was supposed to reopen at the end of October. It is now projected for November 23, 2026.
The cause is a NYC Parks sinkhole repair near East 80th Street, a separate project run by a separate agency, which reaches its site through HSS's work zone. That is how the whole East Side waterfront works. The walkway from the 50s to the 90s is a chain of segments owned by a hospital, a university, the city's Economic Development Corporation, the Parks Department and the Department of Transportation. Each one runs on its own clock, and a continuous walk only exists when all of those clocks line up.
One Sinkhole, Six Blocks
Community Board 8 posted notice that a Parks contractor would start repairing the East 80th Street sinkhole on October 13. The pedestrian entrances at East 78th and East 81st Streets would close while the work went on. On October 15, Patch reported that Parks expected to finish within two weeks. Patch still described both entrances as closed on October 20, with no firm date for reopening them.
HSS's spokesperson laid out the knock-on effect plainly. "HSS had anticipated reopening the remaining section through East 78th Street by the end of October," Tracy Hickenbottom, the hospital's assistant vice president of public relations, told Patch. "However, additional sinkhole repairs being undertaken by NYC Parks near East 80th Street require access to a portion of the construction area, affecting the schedule."
Simon's email to Friends put the new finish as "the week of November 23," when HSS expects to complete the topside improvements. That target has already slipped once. Treat it as a projection.
What HSS Still Owes the Waterfront
The closure goes back to 2022. That year HSS began building Kellen Tower, its new wing beside the FDR, and Our Town reported the project cost nearly $300 million. HSS announced the tower's opening in March 2026 and describes the esplanade rebuild as part of the Kellen Tower project and a longstanding commitment to the community. In 2024, Patch called the work part of the hospital's "community agreement."
The building is finished. The walkway work is what's left. According to HSS's project page, the 72nd to 78th Street section includes:
- Seawall improvements and repair of a sinkhole near the base of the East 78th Street ramp, coordinated with NYC Parks
- New pavers and landscaping
- New fitness equipment
- A separate Parks repair of a sinkhole at East 74th Street, which HSS lists as complete
The fitness equipment is what Friends of the East River Esplanade board chair Jennifer Ratner said she was looking forward to. She also told Our Town that the saga has been "one delay after another" and that she "can't go anywhere" without hearing about the closure.
HSS has done this before. The hospital says it finished a $1.8 million renovation between East 70th and East 72nd Streets in 2018. The newest finished piece of the current project is at the south end. HSS's permanent East 71st Street pedestrian ramp opened in June 2026. HSS also lists permanent pavers and landscaping between 70th and 71st, Parks' repair of two sinkholes, and Con Edison's removal of a decommissioned fuel line as done.
The Other Clocks on the Same Shoreline
When Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura spoke at the summer reopening, she told Our Town her agency was "all about a contiguous waterfront that is open and accessible to the public." Getting that contiguous waterfront means syncing schedules that have never been synced.
South of HSS, the pieces are mostly finished. NYCEDC's East Midtown Greenway runs from East 53rd to East 61st Street, connects to Andrew Haswell Green Park at East 62nd, and opened to the public in 2023. Rockefeller University says it repaired a failed seawall between East 64th and East 68th Streets. It added landscaping, seating, lighting and a noise barrier, and set up a $1 million endowment to maintain the stretch.
North of HSS, the larger city projects are just beginning or have no posted dates. NYC Parks' Phase 3 capital tracker lists work at East 59th to 63rd, East 63rd to 81st, and East 90th to 125th Streets, with $85.183 million in funding. It shows an April 2026 start, construction 0 percent complete, and a projected finish in April 2028. So the blocks HSS hands back in November fall inside a Parks project scheduled to run another year and a half.
NYC DOT's page describes an $80 million rebuild of John Finley Walk, the promenade above the FDR from East 81st to East 90th Street. DOT manages it on behalf of Parks. The scope includes structural repairs under the deck, girder replacement, drainage, new railings, lighting and benches. The page gives no construction schedule.
Farther up, the 90s have had a sinkhole year of their own. Our Town reported in May that a repair would close East 93rd to 96th Street for four weeks starting May 26. Nothing published since then has said when that stretch reopened. In August, Our Town also reported that the Bobby Wagner Walk overhaul would put its funding toward East 117th to 124th Street, sinkhole repairs at 105th to 107th, and the East 107th Street Pier. That leaves East 94th to 105th without a major overhaul beyond sinkhole repairs.
The Walk, South to North, as of This Week
Here's how the shoreline stands this week, going north from the Queensboro Bridge area:
- East 53rd to 61st Street. The East Midtown Greenway is open, linking to Andrew Haswell Green Park at East 62nd.
- East 64th to 68th Street. Rockefeller University's rebuilt section with seating, lighting and a noise barrier.
- East 70th to 71st Street. Open, with the permanent East 71st Street ramp working since June.
- East 72nd to 78th Street. Closed for HSS construction, projected to reopen November 23.
- East 78th and East 81st Street entrances. Closed for the Parks sinkhole repair near East 80th, which started October 13. HSS's page still says the East 78th Street pedestrian bridge reopened after a summer closure, but that update came before the October work.
- East 81st to 90th Street, John Finley Walk and Carl Schurz Park. No closure reported this fall apart from the East 81st entrance. The $80 million DOT rebuild has no posted start date.
- East 93rd to 96th Street. No public update on access since the four-week repair closure planned for late May.
If the November date holds, the gap between 72nd and 78th closes, and the waterfront runs unbroken from the Greenway's southern end up to Carl Schurz Park for the first time since 2022. Whether the East 78th and 81st entrances are open by then depends on when Parks finishes at 80th Street.
A Block Inland, Along the Same Stretch
The closed blocks have neighbors that weren't there when the fence went up. Several of this year's openings sit on the same cross streets, between First and York:
- La Collina, an Italian restaurant and pizzeria at 1431 First Avenue at East 74th Street, opened August 18 for lunch, dinner and brunch, according to Eater NY's September roundup.
- Dan Bakery, which started in New Jersey, opened its second storefront at 1431 York Avenue at East 76th Street in August, per Eater NY's August roundup.
- Ob Uan, a Thai restaurant at 1479 First Avenue at East 77th Street in the former Spice space, was listed as open in the same September roundup.
- Maz Mezcal moved to 304 East 78th Street after 39 years at its earlier location, reopening in July, Patch reported.
All four sit within the cross streets of the HSS section, 74th through 78th. Once the walkway reopens, these blocks get their river access back, and East 78th Street links Maz Mezcal to the reopened stretch. That assumes Parks has the 78th Street entrance open by then.
The Carl Schurz Park Holiday Tree Lighting is set for December 6, 2026, at 5 p.m., at East 86th Street and East End Avenue, with carols and free seasonal treats. If the November 23 date holds, the walk from 72nd Street to the tree runs straight along the water.
At Brooklyn Brownstone Sales, Steve Segretta tracks how projects like the HSS rebuild and Parks' Phase 3 affect the blocks around them, and how they figure into a building's value. If you own or are thinking about owning near the East River in the 70s or 80s and want to talk through what a reopened waterfront means for your block, schedule a complimentary, no-pressure market consultation.
