OPINION: Brooklyn Bridge Park evolves
Brooklyn Bridge Park is a very different place, in both larger and smaller elements, since the first “American Landscape” plan in the form of a Harbor Park, sponsored by the Brooklyn Heights Association and designed by Terry Schnadelbach, was presented in 1988. Protracted struggle with the Port Authority, which had wanted to replace the piers that had been closed in 1983 with housing along the stretch below the Promenade, lasted beyond 1992 — a year in which the then Borough President Howard Golden pushed a separate Brooklyn Harbor plan calling for food stalls and other concessions on a mainly paved area. On the eve of his defeat in 1994 Governor Mario Cuomo was joined by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other elected officials and state agencies in support of a park. Fortunately the new governor, George Pataki, proved a strong park advocate, and public use of the space would be assured.
Where the park movement had been entirely a volunteer-led effort, with Tony Manheim and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition organizing it, the establishment of the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront Local Development Corporation (LDC) in 1988 created an official agency eligible to received public funding and to commence developing a master plan for the park. In 2000 that plan was published, and it went through a series of public presentations at which modifications were offered. One needs to recall that the plan was opposed by many in Willowtown who feared that Joralemon Street would be overwhelmed by park-bound traffic and by many in Cobble Hill who thought the plan mainly benefited Brooklyn Heights (where there was also some fear of public incursion).
But then came a major snag. New structural studies and cost analyses showed in 2004 both that the piers could not support certain planned features, like an earthen amphitheater on Pier 3 and a recreational shed on Pier 5, and that the park’s annual maintenance would come to more than $15 million annually, far higher than anticipated. With Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates now as the park’s chief designers, a drastically revised plan called for luxury housing next to the newly included Pier 6 and at the Manhattan Bridge end to pay toward the park’s maintenance (a hotel and conference center had always been envisioned). Bitter opposition to private elements in a public park ensued. However, with the sale by Jehovah’s Witnesses of 360 Furman Street to a developer for conversion into the One Brooklyn Bridge Park condominiums, the issue has been somewhat finessed.