Young as it is, Roosevelt Island looks like it’s getting a facelift as a rising tide in morale brings freshly groomed features into view.

by David Stone

The Roosevelt Island Daily News

Rising Tide: Seeing Is Believing

https://rioc.ny.gov/

RIOC’s landscaping crews are “…doing their seasonal plantings this week and next,” Acting Chief Operating Officer Mary Cunneen told The Daily.

True. But it’s more than that, more than a routine. You can see it in multiple places around Roosevelt Island.

Areas, like Riverwalk Commons, where residents voiced frustrations over groundskeeping and a lack of cooperation from RIOC, now benefit from thoughtful, expert grooming.

Tthere is more, though, and we see the rising tide of morale at RIOC yielding results in other places – increasing attention at Motorgate, Eleanor’s Pier and improving transparency as well as community responsiveness.

Sticking to the Greening of Roosevelt Island for Now

As demonstrated in our cover photo, RIOC’s Grounds Department is finally making the best of the stripped down extremes previous administrations left in Southpoint Park. Where litter and untamed, invasive plants scarred the landscape, we find something much better.

What caught our eye yesterday, though was how RIOC’s landscapers seized the moment now that all the tunnel and track work is over. A clean space welcomed decoration and got it.

• Better Now: An Interim Look at RIOC with Gerrald Ellis
• How New York City Was Made By Water
• A Main Street Makeover – What’s “The Deli” Got In Store for Roosevelt Island?
• Fix The East River? Is That Now Still Possible?
• Are the Ghosts All Around You Really Angels Singing Tidings of Joy?

It may not look like much yet, but consider what was there before.

Joining forces with the MTA, RIOC turned out an artfully clean view greeting arrivals from the busiy subway station.

Is the rising tide spreading from Grounds through the rest of RIOC? Let’s watch.

Who Does This?

The board-approved terms gave Hudson/Related thirty years, no vacancy deadline and a larger share of profits if the land became more valuable

Theo Gobblevelt Jul 24, 2026

At the June 18 meeting of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s Real Estate Development Advisory Committee, President and Chief Executive Officer B.J. Jones acknowledged that there had been no progress finding a tenant for the long-discussed medical space on Main Street. Hudson/Related Realty LLC had told him that filling the space, along with other vacant storefronts, was proving more difficult than expected.

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