If you live between 70th and 78th on the east side of the neighborhood, you've probably already seen the fence move. For years it sat locked at 70th Street, and getting north along the water meant turning around or detouring onto the FDR service road. Then, on June 15, 2026, a section actually reopened. The 71st Street ramp came back. So did the stretch of pavement between 70th and 71st. People walked it. Dogs were walked on it. It felt, for the first time in a long time, like the waterfront was coming back.
Here's what the good news left out. As more pavement opened through the summer, the stretch you can actually walk end to end hit a hard stop partway up, and it has nothing to do with a delay. It comes down to one specific bridge that closed for the season at the exact moment the rest of the path kept opening around it.
What Actually Reopened, Block by Block
The project covers eight blocks, from East 70th to East 78th Street, and it's being run by Hospital for Special Surgery as part of the buildout around its new Kellen Tower, the 12-story clinical building that now rises over the FDR near 70th Street. HSS has skin in this game beyond goodwill. The hospital's main campus fronts this stretch of waterfront, and its 2018 renovation of the 70th-to-72nd segment (a $1.8 million project at the time) is the foundation this year's work builds on.
Here's the timeline as it's actually unfolded:
| Segment | Status |
|---|---|
| East 70th to 71st Street | Reopened June 15, 2026 |
| East 71st to 72nd Street | Was on track to reopen by mid to late July 2026, per HSS's timeline |
| East 72nd to 78th Street | Still opening in phases as of mid-August, with full completion targeted for October 2026 |
Jack Wong, the project manager overseeing the work for HSS, told Community Board 8's Parks and Waterfront Committee in June that the team was moving as fast as weather and inspections allowed. "We have some good news to report here," he said at one meeting, describing the push to turn sections over to the public "so you can at least enjoy it" rather than waiting for the entire project to finish at once.
That block-by-block approach is exactly why the picture is more complicated than "it's reopening."
The Bridge That Stays Locked
Here's the part that matters if you actually want to walk or run this stretch end to end. The 78th Street pedestrian bridge, the one next to John Jay Park, closed in July so crews could finish playground equipment and run irrigation lines underneath it. As the construction fence shifted north to make room for that work, walkers lost the ability to continue past 78th Street, and the bridge itself won't reopen until the entire eight-block project wraps this fall.
So picture the sequence. In June, the fence sat at 70th Street. By midsummer, it had moved north block by block as each segment cleared inspection, opening more pavement each time. But the one access point at the top of that stretch, the bridge most people would use to get on or off the esplanade near John Jay Park, closed for the rest of the season right as the blocks below it kept opening. The stretch between 72nd and 78th is still being finished in phases, with the full eight blocks, bridge included, not expected to be back in one piece until October. If your building entrance is closer to 78th than to 70th, the path outside your window may still be unfinished even as the blocks nearer the hospital already feel done.
As of mid-August, here's roughly where things stand. A few practical notes for anyone testing this stretch out:
- The 70th to 72nd segment is the most reliably open right now, with final painting and paving wrapped or close to it.
- North of 72nd, expect intermittent barriers as crews finish seawall repairs and sinkhole remediation before paving and landscaping catch up.
- The 78th Street bridge is closed for the rest of the summer at least, so anyone entering from the John Jay Park side should plan a different route until the full project closes out.
One Stretch Has a Hospital Behind It. The Other Doesn't.
There's a second story running in parallel a few blocks north, and it's worth knowing because it explains something about how this waterfront actually gets maintained.
Between East 90th and East 125th Street sits Bobby Wagner Walk, a much longer stretch of the same esplanade named for the son of former mayor Robert F. Wagner. A planned $294 million restoration of two sections of that walk, East 94th to 107th Street and East 117th to 124th Street, including the long-shuttered East 107th Street Pier, has run into funding trouble. Representatives from the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Parks Department told Community Board 11 that budget pressure, partly tied to how much of the work can happen without closing lanes on the FDR Drive, has forced them to scale back the scope. The pier will still reopen after being closed since 2018, but planned amenities like new restrooms are being cut.
Compare the two situations. Down at 70th Street, a private institution with a direct stake in the waterfront outside its own building is funding and managing the work, and the timeline has mostly held. Up at 94th, the project depends entirely on city capital budgets and interagency coordination, and it's the one getting trimmed. Jennifer Ratner, who chairs Friends of the East River Esplanade, told Our Town that community members felt the project was supposed to be a generational reinvention of the waterfront and now feels like less than that.
Neither section belongs to the other on paper. Both are the same greenway. But if you're wondering why one stretch of your waterfront gets a fast, funded fix while another keeps slipping, the honest answer is that it depends on who else has a reason to care about that particular quarter mile.
What This Means Between Now and October
If you live in the 70s, the smart move for the rest of this year is to treat the esplanade as a moving target rather than a finished amenity. Back in June, Maria Kessler of Friends of the East River Esplanade said she planned to share news of the reopening at a weekend gathering at Andrew Haswell Green Park, and it's a fair bet the crowd there has kept tracking these updates as more segments have opened since.
October is the number to circle if you want the full eight-block stretch, John Jay Park bridge included, back in working order. Until then, the honest read is this. More of the path is open than at any point in years. But open pavement and open access aren't the same thing, and the gap between them runs right through the block you might use to get down to the water in the first place.
If you're already walking these blocks and want a neighbor's read on what else is changing around the East 70s and beyond, from restaurant openings to the next Community Board 8 agenda, I'm always glad to compare notes. Let's Connect.
