protected under a state law called the Public Trust Doctrine. It mandates that parkland, unlike, for example, privately owned public space, is protected and can only be converted to another use through the passage of state legislation, typically including measures to mitigate the public's loss. Thanks to this protection, the neighbors who sued were able to force the NYPD to stop using James Madison Plaza as a parking lot in 2003 and turn it back over to the Parks Department.

"Parks are created as pleasure grounds and set apart for the recreation of the public," Judge Walter Tolub, the same judge who heard the Wall Street parking garage case, wrote in a decision. "Parks are not created to provide free parking."

The park reopened in 2013 after extensive renovations.



An NYPDroadblock bars car traffic from the Chinatown end of Park Row. (Google)

The closure of Park Row is still in effect, and has drastically limited tourist and commercial truck access to downtown, leading to increased vehicle congestion, and, residents argue, causing the shuttering of numerous small businesses in Chinatown. The NYPD environmental impact statement's authors found that the security zone "may have contributed to the general decline in business conditions," but concluded that because 9/11 and other factors affected the economy, the closures had "not resulted in significant adverse impacts."

The impact closure has been particularly directly felt by residents of Chatham Green, a 21-story coop complex, the driveway for which is behind the NYPD checkpoint on the Chinatown end of Park Row. Since 2001, residents have had to get