It's all part of a massive public relations campaign to spread information, and they are well funded," Marcy says with an emphatic 00 You don't believe me? Look at the way they've distorted my posi n m the media. I went from being portrayed as a saint to someone who's evil nut! I've no desire to see the edge returned to a preColonial condition,' as they said about me in one newspaper article. In fact, I'm all f0r parks, I love parks! I just think it should be enough for people to be able to walk by or ride by and look out at that mighty river, and not build on it. The Hudson River is glorious and wonderful all by itself." "You sound like A1 Butzel." "A1 Butzel never really cared about the river," she says disdainfully. THE NEXT DAY, sufficiently disturbed by her claims to want clarification, I drop in on Carter Craft at the Municipal Art Society. Carter, a pleasant, intelligent young man from the South, calm as a porpoise, with thick, darkrimmed spectacles and dismayingly long sideburns, is also the most knowledgeable person I know about the waterfront. He heads an informational project within the venerable Municipal Art Society called the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. Carter is chomping down on a tuna sandwich in the conference room when he sees me, and he waves me inside. As usual, he takes an unruffled, objective tone after I repeat Marci Benstock's arguments: instead of scoffing at them, he tells me I should talk to SoandSo who assigns permits at the Army Corps of Engineers. In other words, check out the facts. If I were an investigative reporter, I would certainly do so. But I'm too lazy. I'm a belletrist, for God's sake! Finally I get him to fork over the information. According to the Hudson River Park legislation, there are only provisions for restoring sixteen piers, not forty, and of these, three will be habitat piers (that is, given over to wilderness growth, not people). He also says that legislation at present prevents construction in the water, though he understands Marci's fears, given the historical record, and he agrees with her that the state authorities are indeed largely unregulated: Battery Park City Authority was supposed to give back many millions of dollars for affordable housing years ago, and is still stalling. But he thinks the reconstructed piers are justifiable because 8 million people live in this city, these people could use more public space, and there can never be any extensive new public space created on the island of Manhattan itself. .on OR THE BATTLE OF WESTWAY 113 OUTBOARD. E AFTERMATH of the World Trade Center's destruction, many sals were put forward to reknit the site to the surrounding urban у placing a lid over the highwaylike West Street or otherwise sub ging it Though the tract being discussed was only the ten or so blocks 'no Battery Park City and the old World Trade Center site, essen adjoinmg tally what was being proposed was a Westwaytype solution.