
By Tracy Zwick
Sixteen months after an SUV careened down the stairs at Riverside Drive and 106th Street, causing structural damage and revealing existing weaknesses in the century-old foundation, the staircase reopened last Friday.
“It’s gorgeous!” enthused City Councilmember Gale Brewer, noting how the designers meticulously sourced new stone from the same Maine quarry as the original granite. The iron handrails, one of which was completely taken out by the SUV, were replaced with clean-lined reconstructions of the originals, updated to be ADA compliant. New concrete foundations were installed, and two sections of the northern cheek wall, destroyed in the wreck, were restored.
Brewer confirmed that the project was entirely funded by an anonymous local donor. “It’s fabulous that people in the neighborhood feel so strongly about the park and are willing to support it. It’s what neighbors should do!” she said.

Merritt Birnbaum, president and CEO of Riverside Park Conservancy, said the project cost in the “mid-six figures,” and took just under four months to complete once work began late this summer. For the previous year, just about one-fourth of the staircase, which provides access for pedestrians from 106th Street to Riverside Park, was open, with the rest deemed unsafe and cordoned off.
The recognizable bronze equestrian sculpture of German-American General Franz Sigel sits atop the staircase. That sculpture, by Austrian-born artist Karl Bitter, was installed several years after the staircase was built around 1900, so has its own foundation and came out of the SUV wreck unscathed.

According to Birnbaum, the SUV itself “didn’t cause so much damage as it revealed underlying structural challenges in the foundation of the stairs. The risers were sitting on a pile of rubble.” One challenge in the preservation and reconstruction was the absence of original blueprints or architectural records. “So it really was a puzzle,” Birnbaum said, adding: “I’m so proud of how quickly we were able to solve it, in partnership with the Parks Department and Margaret Bracken in particular, the landscape architect and chief of design and construction who led the project from start to finish.”

The project began once funding was secured, with an exploratory study last January that revealed the extent of the pre-existing deterioration. “We also needed to understand the trees in the area and be sure we were protecting the tree roots,” Birnbaum added, assuring WSR that there was no impact on the surrounding natural landscape. With some “bureaucracy,” like “getting the permits to close the bus stop” out of the way, work began late last summer, and the stairs became entirely closed to the public. Because the project was privately funded, there was no need for competitive bidding or myriad additional layers of public scrutiny, which Brewer credits for the speed with which it was completed.

A sign will be posted onsite soon, discussing the renovation and the stone, which is variegated in tones of mauve and grey, and which Birnbaum said will change color slightly over time as it ages and continues to blend with the original granite. Both Brewer and Birnbaum were quick to point out the addition of two quiet, octagonally-based cast iron bollards at the top of the stairs, just to the north and south of Franz Sigel – to prevent vehicles from entering the area in the future.

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Many thanks to the donor – your gift is very much appreciated.
Agreed..Thanks very much to our anonymous donor..A gift to all of us..xxR
Agreed! And Mr. or Mrs Donor – can you please now restore Absolute Bagels??? Pretty please?
Maybe he or she knows a good exterminator!
The driver did the damage, not the SUV. Hopefully the driver paid some toward the repair.
And chip in for my student loan? lol
Was the driver arrested? That’s a lot of damage caused to the park
The driver fled but the rental agency should’ve been held responsible and then they would pursue the person who rented the vehicle.
Rental agency would be concerned about damage to the vehicle, not the damage to the park. It should be easy for NYPD to track down the perpetrator via the rental agency.
Looks great. Now tackle all the falling down walls and staircases on the UWS, Morningside, Manhattanville, West Harlem along the West Side Highway and the Hudson.
Yeah, with what money?
Looks amazing. Thank you neighbor!
If the John Merven Carrere Memorial stairs are any indication it will be another place that dog owners will enjoy allowing their animals to urinate all over.
You must be fun at cocktail parties. Always so positive.
So did the SUV driver ever get charged for this? Why aren’t they named in the article?
Huge thanks to the anonymous donor — you are a gem of the UWS.
Considering Brewer acknowledges that private funding removed,layers of bureaucracy that would have delayed this, is there anything she can do to adjust the bureaucracy for publicly funded projects that take far too long?
The contractor on this project did an amazing job. The entire crew was fast and friendly. It’s truly shocking ( for a NYC project) how quickly they were able to get it done. The stone work looks fantastic. ( is there a lesson here?)
Super double thanks to the donor who made this possible. Bravo.
Sounds as though they did very good work. Great to hear.
Gale Brewer: “It’s fabulous that people in the neighborhood feel so strongly about the park and are willing to support it. It’s what neighbors should do!”
It IS fabulous that a donor funded this, but isn’t this something Gale Brewer should do? Isn’t this something our city should do?
Thank you, benefactors and RSPark Conservancy for restoring this key passageway to the park and giving us a glimpse of what our park looked like in its glory. I haven’t had a chance to get down there yet, but I’m hoping that those dark railings are “finger-friendly,” made of a material that will not burn hands in the summer sun and freeze them in winter. Many park-goers need to grasp railings to mount those magnificent stairs.
mtress11@gmail.com
Only took six years.
How do you get 6 years?
The steps and railings were iffy long before the SUV accident. I took a tumble in 2019 when the railing gave way in a rainstorm and have a titanium fibula and tibia as a result. The city has known about this for a long time.
Or 16 months.
thank you WsR for a fantastic report, so thankful to have the stairs restored and to have such civic minded donors in our midst! I wonder if the Maine quarry referenced in the article is located on the island of Vinalhaven?(if so, then it would be the same source of granite as the 80 foot column in the Cathedral of Saint John, the Divine and other NYC granite monuments How might I find out?
The original material used is granite quarried in Maine from either the Vinalhaven quarry, now closed, or the Deer Isle quarry, which is still active. These granites were also used at the US Capital and in the construction of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, as well as various other locations in RSP, notably the Rotunda at West 79th Street and the western stair at Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument.
It looks gorgeous. Too bad these people weren’t involved in the rebuilding of the 79 st boat basin.
Previous reporting included that this was a rental vehicle. So while the driver fled the scene, it should’ve been fairly easy to track down the responsible parties, especially the rental agency. Drivers damage infrastructure in NYC at an alarming rate and yet I have never heard of an instance where the driver or their insurance company was held financially responsible for the repairs. Why not? Seems like something the comptroller’s office would take interest in.
It looks incredible, and even more incredible is the generosity of the citizen who paid for it, we will forever be beholden to you.
So happy to see this fixed! Thank you donor!!!