Step Inside the ‘Little Island,’ Barry Diller’s $260 Million Public Park

From Manhattan’s West Side Highway, the “Little Island” looks like a cluster of giant white flower buds sprouting from the Hudson River. But the 2.4-acre park—conceived and mostly paid for by billionaire Barry Diller through his Diller - von Furstenberg Family Foundation—is actually an undulating platform of grass, trees, and winding pathways mounted on concrete piles where Pier 54 used to be.

When it opens to the public on Friday, May 21, visitors will be able to enter from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. year-round via two, boardwalk-sized bridges that connect the structure to the Hudson River Greenway and roughly correspond to 14th and 13th streets. The most dramatic approach is from the southern entrance through an arch covered in plants and trees.