Wave Hill urges kids to protect Palisades

Speaking before a group of toddlers at Wave Hill on Sunday morning, educator Rama Mandel directed the children’s attention to a wide view encompassing the Hudson River and the Palisades.

“Instead of a blue sky and nature and green trees, there will be a high-rise sticking up,” she said, alluding to LG Electronics USA’s plans to build their new headquarters on the Palisades. “Do we like that?”

“No!” Audrey Cohen, 37, replied, encouraging her 4- and 5-year-old daughters to join her.

“Are you ready to become a Palisades protector?” continued Ms. Mandel, the creative assistant and storyteller at Wave Hill.

“Yay!” the girls and their mother all shouted.

The scene played out dozens of times at Wave Hill’s latest weekend of activities for families, which centered around the movement against LG’s plans for an eight-story headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Since the electronics giant announced those plans — scheduled for completion by 2018 — people in Riverdale and elsewhere in New York and New Jersey have protested that the building would mar views of the Palisades and pave the way for more buildings to go up along the nationally landmarked cliffs.

Wave Hill sought to bring the message home to more than 200 total children and parents by having the youngsters make watercolor panoramas of the Palisades along with signs saying why the area should be protected. 

Like other parents on Sunday, Ms. Cohen said her children were too young to fully understand the protest movement against LG.

But she said Ms. Mandel’s talk had motivated her to get involved herself.

“I’m sad. We will come anyway, but it takes away from the beauty,” the Riverdale resident said while she, her daughters and a friend of theirs painted on the grass. “I don’t know if my voice can be heard. I will try and I want to try.”

The weekend program also seemed to inspire two older children who participated.

“It’s fun to paint, and the Palisades are pretty important,” said Lily Oberstein, 10, a student at SAR Academy.

“We really should keep the Palisades. It’s like we’ve had them for such a long time, it’s not good to give it away,” said her sister Nava, 9, who added she first learned about LG’s plans from her parents.

Last month, Englewood Cliffs’ City Council voted to undo a zoning change that would have raised the maximum height for new buildings along a stretch of the Palisades to 150 feet. The move did not affect LG’s plans for a 143-foot headquarters, since those had been approved under a zoning variance.

Riverdale’s Councilman Andrew Cohen has introduced a bill asking Englewood Cliffs to undo that variance. He hopes to see it passed this fall.