A Look at the Future of Brooklyn Bridge Park
[nggallery id=”22502″ template=galleryview] In case you didn’t make it to Monday night’s meeting on the future of Brooklyn Bridge Park, fear not! We’ve got some of the renderings up here and Curbed has some more. The two big take-aways from the meeting? 17 acres of new park land will be created by the end of…
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In case you didn’t make it to Monday night’s meeting on the future of Brooklyn Bridge Park, fear not! We’ve got some of the renderings up here and Curbed has some more. The two big take-aways from the meeting? 17 acres of new park land will be created by the end of 2009 and by 2012 two-thirds of the park should be complete. Wildest rendering? Number 5, the boating basin and nature island at Pier 4. (If this post is looking familiar, that’s because it mistakenly went up last night.)
Pop-Up Park Pops in Brooklyn Bridge Park [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn Bridge Park Updated & Fully Revealed [Curbed]
Noone “ruined” this park for everyone. It will still be a beautiful PUBLIC park for all of Brooklyn to enjoy, with great views of the harbor and lower manhattan. It’s true that the design of the park will be different from the one that was out there for a couple of years. And the design you want may even be better than the current design – but all this rhetoric about how the park is just the exclusive backyard for rich people is just not helpfull or accurate.
Sorry you don’t believe in parks, 9:52 AM. They help improve neighborhoods in so many ways, beyond the obvious uses for active and passive recreation. Too bad you want to give up on this one. But it is understandable – the Brooklyn Heights Assn and the Conservancy have ruined this “park” for everyone, be they rich, middle class or poor. They have trumpeted taking tax dollars out of the general tax roll to be given over to their one pet “project” (it isn’t even a park according to Regina Meyer’s own bosses and the courts). But it is sad that you aren’t willing to put that anger toward advocating for a true park. Brooklyn has the least amount of park land per person in NYC. This shoreline is fabulous – it should be accessible to all and not to a few people rich enough to live on it.
It was a mistake to plan any sort of public park there at all. we should take care of the parks we already have. The land should have been sold to a developer for top dollar. I’m tired of paying taxes for vanity projects like this. How many millions so far? For what? Rich folks fighting with each other as to what would make a better public park? The city needs the revenue, they should have just sold it and let honest-to-goodness private, tax-paying buildings be built there. So much crap from the entitled neighbors. As if they are the only ones who should live in the area and all new building should stop.
To the person who asked about representation on the board? It is completely not representative of the eventual park users. The five locals who sit on the board all live in the central Heights, on the Promenade or within a couple of blocks. They are John Watts, Hank Guttman, Joanne Witty, Peter Ashkenasy and David Offensend. All have their interests satisfied- nothing much to do in this park but bird watch (read: no people or lights or noise to contend with), no access from the promenade, and a bunch of rich folks like themselves to guard each of the entrances in high rise condos.
To the Conservancy flak who wrote that putting luxury housing at the entrances serves “to transition from the city to the park” – what a bunch of hooey is that?! The city surrounds us so there is no need for transitioning – we need an honest to goodness park with pools, ice rinks and indoor sport facilities. Don’t you see the statistics on childhood obesity, diabetes and asthma? This is a sorry excuse for a “park” and the $340 million that will be spent to landscape private homes.
I’ve been hearing about this park since 1987, when I was still almost a kid. My father is still laughing about its endless delays. At least this is a start. My kid points out the progress every day – if it happens by 2012, that’d be great.
4:54- city money won’t be sufficient but that’s why there are non-profits to raise funds and to do it in a way that protects the public interest. What do you think would happen if the Parks dept. decided to put luxury housing in Central Park to make it “self-sustaining?” Take a chunk out of Prospect Park and put up a parking garage for luxury vehicles from Park Slope. Make the koi pond in the Bklyn Botanic garden a private swimming pool with a high end yearly subscription so the gardens can make money! Parks are for everyone, and they’re important, especially for city dwellers. They need to be as big as possible- it’s a plus for everyone.
There simply has to be a better way to create public parks without giving over chunks of it to private interests- that goes against the whole idea.
two thousand effin’ twelve for two-thirds of a park? Are they kidding? And of course if they say 2012, it will inevitably run over.
Since city tax dollars are not remotely sufficient to maintain Central Park or Prospect Park (hence the need for non-profits to raise private money)I very much doubt that there would be tax money available for the maintenance of the BB Park. Where do people get such notions? Are they even living on the same planet? Or are they in some Brooklyn Heights old geezer alternate reality?
The truth is that our elected officals Connor, Yassky and Millman sold our waterfront and public spaces to developers and they should be held responsible. With all the new residents of Brooklyn (most affording expensive apartments to buy or rent) the increase in the state and local tax rolls should pay for the park. Pubic officals think they are empowered to do this kind of stuff. Pretty
amazing!!