What Sandy changed
Hurricane Sandy made landfall in October 2012 with storm surge that flooded large sections of Lower Manhattan, Red Hook in Brooklyn, the Rockaways in Queens, and Staten Island. The subway system flooded extensively — some tunnels were submerged for days. The economic damage ran to tens of billions of dollars. The human cost — 43 deaths in New York City alone — focused political attention on coastal infrastructure in a way that smaller events hadn't.
What's been built since
East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) — a major flood protection project running along the Manhattan east side from 25th Street to Montgomery Street, incorporating berms, floodwalls, and redesigned parks that double as flood barriers. Parts of the East River Park were controversial in their redesign — the original park was raised to serve as a flood berm, which required temporarily removing most of its mature trees.
The Big U (now The Dryline) — a proposed 10-mile protective system of parks and infrastructure around lower Manhattan that won a federal design competition in 2013. Implementation has proceeded in sections rather than as a single project.
Subway flood mitigation — the MTA has been installing flood barriers, improving drainage, and raising ventilation grates at vulnerable stations. Progress is real but slower than the scale of the problem might suggest.
What's visible now
Visitors to the East River waterfront in Lower Manhattan and the redesigned sections of the East Side park areas will see infrastructure that reads as landscaping but functions as flood protection. Governors Island, increasingly used as a test site for resilient design, has visible examples of these approaches at smaller scale.