Crews have begun demolishing Ned Smyth's 40-year-old sculpture *Upper Room* in Battery Park City, New York, to make way for the North/West Battery Park City Resiliency (NWBPCR) project. The 20-column concrete colonnade, commissioned in 1986 as the neighborhood's first public art piece, features an elongated table with inlaid chessboards and was appraised at $1.5 million. The demolition is part of a larger plan to install a coastal flood barrier system along the Hudson River waterfront, intended to protect against storms like Hurricane Sandy.
The destruction of *Upper Room* highlights the tension between climate adaptation and cultural preservation. While the Battery Park City Authority argues the sculpture showed deterioration and could not be relocated, the artist and local residents dispute the necessity, noting no floodwaters have reached the site in 31 years. The case echoes similar conflicts elsewhere, such as the removal of San Francisco's Vaillancourt Fountain, raising broader questions about how cities balance resiliency infrastructure with irreplaceable public art.