The Authors

The authors of this plan were two New York activists: architect Paul Willen, FAIA, and environmental planner Dan Gutman. During the early planning, the key participants for the Civics were Kent Barwick (MAS) and Linda Davidoff (the Parks Council.)

At the start, Trump fiercely opposed the Civics plan, but in early 1991 he dropped his scheme and adopted the popular Civics plan in its place. A tripartite agreement establishing Riverside South was then signed by the city, the developer, and the six Civics groups. A key provision was that the park and other amenities would be paid for by the developer.

The Governing Agency

The agreement also provided that the development would be governed by an agency to be called the Riverside South Planning Corporation (RSPC), composed of the six Civics and the developer.

The preparation of the final plan and the ULURP documents was carried out by a joint venture of Skidmore Owings Merrill and Paul Willen (SOM-Willen.) Included were detailed zoning "envelopes" laying out the massing of each of the 13 blocks.