Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park
The most recent controversy over Brooklyn Bridge Park has to do with plans to put a grocery store in the base of the public-private development’s anchoring condo, One Brooklyn Bridge Park, according to an article in this week’s Brooklyn Paper. Judy Stanton, the executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, says it’s “not the most…
The most recent controversy over Brooklyn Bridge Park has to do with plans to put a grocery store in the base of the public-private development’s anchoring condo, One Brooklyn Bridge Park, according to an article in this week’s Brooklyn Paper. Judy Stanton, the executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, says it’s “not the most complimentary business for the park,” while Ken Baer, chair of the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club, argues that “all the land within the park should be devoted to recreational space.” One Brooklyn Bridge Park’s developer says he wants to put a (what else?) high-end market into the building as well as two restaurants and smaller shops. The taxes collected from the condo’s retail would help cover the park’s maintenance costs. Do you like the idea of a high-end market here?
Supermarket Could Come to ‘Park’ [Brooklyn Paper] GMAP
Amidst Lingering Controversy, BBP Construction to Begin [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn Bridge Park Meeting: The Morning After [Brownstoner]
It’s amazing that the rest of BH streets will be rearranged or rerouted for the sake of one building and its new BBP residents. Are they doing us a favor?
Don’t kid yourself, this isn’t going to be a world class park, it’s going to be a dinky, little, noisy park that nobody will go to even if it ever gets built, which is a big if.
I don’t think you need to compare it to Central Park or Prospect Park, two of the greatest American Romatic Landscapes of the 19th Century. That would make Joralemon Street comparable to Propect Park West or Central Park West, which it isn’t.
There won’t be guards at Joralemon, as far as I’ve heard. (Although there are plenty of them in the BBP plan. They used to be armed — not sure if the guns are out or in now.)
No, Joralemon is not a dogpatch cul-de-sac. It is not even a non-dogpatch cul-de-sac. It is important but also SMALL and NARROW. A proper park plan would have appropriate access points; Central Park has car entrances every 10 or so blocks, as does Prospect Park. Pedestrian access is even better.
If this is a “World-Class Park” it needs a world-class transportation plan. Perhaps Brooklyn Bridge Park is actually a gated community off a cul-de-sac off of an important street in an important part of an important city that won’t plan realistic transporation for all of it very important inhabitants?
I do not think that the movers and shakers that buy in One BBP will allow their street to be cut off right in front of their buildings because the near-penniless old fartdom of joralemon st. does not wish to hear their cars go by.
What are house owners near the bottom of the street going to do? Back up uphill to Columbia Place?
The idea is just too impractical. Only Wendy L. would have embraced it publicly wih a straight face. Amazing that she was never indicted.
Those retractable bollards are problematic.
You are not suggesting that we turn joralemon into an armed DMZ like Wall and Broadway are you? I mean, there it is done because of the Stock Exchange and the fear of terrorism. Armed police are on duty 24/7 to lower the bollards for police or CEO’s.
Will there be 24/7 guards at Joralemon? don’t be ridiculous! The bollards tend to get stuck in icy weather and tend to get stuck in very hot weather. How many EMS patients will die unable to get to LICH on time because of a faulty bollard?
Joralemon is an important street in an important past of an important city. It is not a cul-de-sac in Dogpatch, USA.
Joralemon would not be closed to fire trucks, police cars or the Mayor’s limo. Retractable bollards would be used — they are on Wall Street where it meets Broadway, in front of the White House, and other areas in cities around the US. If they work on Wall Street, why not here?
This was proposed to me by a Michael Van Valkenurgh employee (the park’s landscape architect) 2 or 3 years ago. Sensors on firetrucks, EMT vehicles, etc. signal the bollards to recede into the street. It works on Wall Street — I have seen it myself, and quizzed people who are down there more than I am.
Why not create a mid-park connection to BBP with easy mass transit access? Or reliable, regularly scheduled shuttle buses that go down Furman and bring people to the buildings, the park and its amenities? Furman may be 2-way in a few years, making this solution all the more workable. we don’t need an artery if circulation improves elswhere in the area. (But enough with the medical metaphors.) Joralemon can and should be closed to non-emergency traffic at Furman Street.
The fire department, police department, and EMS will never agree to close off Joralemon St. It is an important connector to Furman. Cobblestone or not, it is in a traffic sense, vital. Wendy Leventer would have agreed to close off the Brooklyn Bridge for all it meant. Forget it guys, Joralemon is a major artery disguised as a mews.
Of course it’s a public street. It is also a narrow public street with paving stones over a major subway line. 500+ additional residents, as well as park visitors and grocery store customers, driving down on a daily basis is unfeasible in even a practical sense. Joralemon is the same size as Cranberry Street, Willow Street, etc. I am sure none of them are feasible high-volume thoroughfares either. The fact that blocking off the street was acknowledged at earlier BBPark meetings, even after housing was added, proves the point. Even everyone’s “favorite” person, former BBPDC Wendy Leventer, told a public meeting in the Brooklyn Polytech auditorium in Winter 2005 that it would be closed to through traffic, as did the Van Valkenburgh park planners at “open houses” on the park plan in 2005 or 2006. This is not something the neighborhood thought up to create a gated community — it is an appropriate measure for a narrow street in an historic district.
my 7:33 posting was mangled for some reason.
My point was that unlike certain communities where the streets are private and subject to closure by the stakehholders, Joralemon St is a public street. Something that some of the residents forget. Anyone is allowed to use Joralemon St any time they like. It is not a private enclave.