Battery Park City destroys Upper Room sculpture for resiliency project

The Upper Room came tumbling down.

A beloved public art project in Battery Park City was demolished Thursday to make way for a new stormproof seawall — leaving local park advocates mourning its loss and saying they believed it didn’t need to get washed away.

“There are a lot of people questioning why the art piece had to be destroyed,” said John Dellaportas, the Vice President of The Battery Alliance.

“How they connect climate change to destroying a piece of public art on really high ground is beyond me.”

The 20-columned sculpture called the Upper Room had stood at the Esplanade entrance at Albany Street for nearly 40 years before it was reduced to rubble Thursday.

Crews took jackhammers, saws and backhoes to the Upper Room, destroying in just two days the sculpture that had served as a neighborhood gathering place for nearly 40 years.

It was the first public art piece commissioned by the Battery Park City Authority, which appraised the stunning piece at $1.5 million.

The authority says it had no choice but to destroy the beloved Upper Room as it prepares to break ground on its controversial North/West Battery Park City Resiliency (NWBPCR) project.

Its longtime home sits atop a space the authority is eyeing to construct a large tide gate that would mitigate future flooding in the event of the next Superstorm Sandy.

Plus, the sculpture had shown signs of cracking in recent years and would have been difficult to relocate because the columns are filled with rebar

But one art conservator theorized the BPCA could have saved the neighborhood staple, but was just too cheap to try.

“A sculpture like this costs more to move than to destroy, but the BPCA has a responsibility as the stewards of a public collection,” Melanie Brussat, who was hired by the BPCA six years ago to assess the condition of Upper Room, told Broadsheet.

“The engineering firm that recommended destroying Upper Room is expert at overseeing resiliency projects, but doesn’t have extensive experience with public art pieces. The BPCA should have hired experts in moving and preserving art.”

It’s anguished artist, Ned Smyth, had similar theories, telling The Post he had asked the group to consider relocating the sculpture off BPCA property.

“They didn’t want to pay, is the bottom line. It’s all about money, I think, and to rebuild it, I’d need to recast all the parts of it again and reset them — they were set on real foundations,” Smyth, 77, said.