The Alliance for Downtown New York unveiled a plan today to make Water Street more "pedestrian friendly."

The street runs more than half a mile from Whitehall to Fulton Streets and has more than 20 percent of Lower Manhattan's commercial real estate housing some 70,000 workers.

"As we continue our revitalization of Lower Manhattan into a 24/7 community, William C. Rudin, chairman of the Association for a Better New York, declared, "it's vital to have the proper balance between commercial and residential usage and by creating dynamic open spaces will only enhance the environment for residents, workers and visitors in Lower Manhattan."

By generating new activity and building on the improvements being made in the surrounding areas, a coordinated framework for art and events will extend the presence of people, enhance the value of open space and reposition the role of Water Street in Lower Manhattan, he said.

The proposal would create a median in Water Street to enable better use of space, including a sidewalk extension that will create an amenity strip for cafe seating, benches, bike racks and additional soil zones for planting of trees and flowers.

To create an "iconic boulevard," the plan would "maintain appropriate traffic flow and prioritize commercial curb access, mark gateways at the street's southern and northern ends, reinforce connections from adjacent transportation nodes and extend the hours of activity."

"Water Street is a boulevard of economic opportunity," said Elizabeth H. Berger, President of the Alliance for Downtown New York. "This plan isn't simply about redesigning the landscape; it's about ensuring that Water Street is an economic engine for Lower Manhattan." "Making this happen will require a firm public-private partnership," Berger said. "The public sector will need to carry out major infrastructure improvements and allow and incentivize private sector changes," the study said.

Most of the plan's goals, of course, could have been met had the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum gone ahead with its thrilling proposal to create a Frank O. Gehry-design museum south of the South Street Seaport that would have been similar and perhaps even more dramatic than his famous facility for the same museum in Bilbao, Spain.

The new plan seeks to improve sight-lines between historic slips and the East River and integrate sustainable design into site improvements and encourage night-time extravaganzas.

Redesigning Mannahatta Park (Wall Street Park) will create a grand entrance to the waterfront while maintaining vehicular access. This space can be used to host events during weekends and off-hours and to support daytime amenities such as a temporary market, the study maintained, adding that "Making improvements to plazas and arcades will create opportunities for retail spaces, new seating, and space for gatherings such as markets and outdoor concerts."

The William Kaufman Organization, of course, had created the city's two most interesting and tantalizing plazas in the office buildings at 77 Water Street and 127 John Street over a generation ago.

The report noted that today, however, the street "exemplifies the oft-cited complaints about many downtowns across the country - predominantly commercial in use, deserted in the evenings and on weekends, lacking retail options and restaurants. The incongruous presence of loading docks and blank walls contributes to an underwhelming pedestrian experience.

"Almost no one walks along Water Street for more than two consecutive blocks," it continued.

"The revival of Stone Street as a lively restaurant row; the creation of a cobblestone pedestrian zone with high-end retail along Wall and Broad Streets; the engaging new esplanade along the East River Waterfront; the reconstruction of Fulton Street and the rebuilding of the World Trade Center - all of these changes only highlight what Water Street is missing," the report argued.