Billionaire Barry Diller spent $260 million to transform a derelict New York pier into a little island. Now millions use the Hudson river park

What was once a crumbling pier on Manhattan’s Hudson River has been transformed into one of New York’s most unusual public spaces. Rising from the water on a forest of concrete supports, Little Island looks less like a conventional city park and more like a floating garden. Behind the extraordinary project is billionaire Barry Diller, who committed hundreds of millions of dollars to turn the abandoned Pier 55 site into a free public space combining nature, architecture and the arts.

From a deteriorating pier to an ambitious idea

The site was once Pier 54, a working waterfront location with a long history. By the time plans for its transformation emerged, the pier had deteriorated significantly. The project began in 2014, when Diller and the Hudson River Park Trust announced plans for a new public pier. What followed was an unusually ambitious design by British architect Thomas Heatherwick and landscape architect Signe Nielsen.

Instead of simply rebuilding the old pier, the team proposed something dramatically different: a park that would rise above the Hudson River. The result eventually became Little Island, a 2.4-acre public park that opened in May 2021. Bloomberg reported that the project cost about $260 million, with Diller and his Diller-Von Furstenberg Family Foundation providing the vast majority of the funding. The foundation also pledged an additional $120 million for future use.

Why did Barry Diller back it?

For Diller, the project was not intended to be another private development. It was conceived as a public space that anyone could use. The Hudson River Park Trust says Diller wanted to “build something for the people of New York and for anyone who visits” a place that would be visually striking but also make people happy.

That emphasis on public access became central to the project. Little Island is free to enter and forms part of the larger Hudson River Park, the extensive waterfront park created from Manhattan’s former industrial shoreline. The Washington Post described Diller’s investment as a major addition to New York’s cultural and recreational landscape, noting that the park quickly became a venue for performances as well as everyday public use.

132 concrete “tulips” hold up the park

Perhaps the most striking feature is what visitors see before they even reach the greenery. The park is supported by 132 concrete structures shaped like tulips, each designed to carry different amounts of soil, plants and other loads. Together, they create the elevated landscape on which trees, lawns, paths and performance spaces sit.

More than 350 species of flowers, trees and shrubs have been planted across the island, alongside 66,000 bulbs and 114 trees, according to Hudson River Park. Heatherwick explained that the designers wanted to turn the engineering normally hidden beneath a pier into part of the experience. The result was a landscape that rises and falls rather than remaining flat.

A park that is also a stage

Little Island was designed to do more than provide green space. It includes a 687-seat amphitheatre, along with another lawn and performance area where concerts, theatre, dance and other events can take place.

Architectural Record described the project as a combination of architecture, engineering and landscape design, while noting that its design grew from the idea of making the pier itself a destination rather than simply a passage along the waterfront. That combination was important to Diller’s vision. The idea was to create somewhere people could experience nature, art and the river in the middle of one of the world's busiest cities.

More than a billionaire-funded landmark

Little Island is ultimately part of a much larger transformation of Manhattan’s western waterfront. The Hudson River Park Act of 1998 began the conversion of the former industrial shoreline into a public park. Today, Hudson River Park stretches along more than four miles of Manhattan’s west side.

Diller’s project took that transformation a step further not by reclaiming another piece of land, but by creating an entirely new landscape above the river. The result is a reminder that an abandoned piece of infrastructure does not necessarily have to disappear. With an unusual design, substantial private funding and a public purpose, a deteriorating pier became a garden, performance venue and gathering place — changing how New Yorkers experience their waterfront.