OPINION: Pineapple Walk sell out
There are many reasons for the community to oppose the cash-rich proposal to build a huge new building in the middle of the Cadman Plaza urban renewal site in Brooklyn Heights. The juicy location — from a developer’s point of view — bordered on one side by Pineapple Walk, the unique low-lying walkway between Henry Street and Cadman Plaza West, and on the north side by the tall apartment building at 75 Henry St., is about one block wide.
But what a block! You can’t beat it for location. To the west is the historic district of Brooklyn Heights. To the east is a heavily treed, popular park. Any eager builder, with money jingling and good connections, doesn’t stop to question why it’s there. He sees Money, with a capital M. But there is an explanation for how this extraordinary bit of precious open space, with sky, light, air and location, location, location came to be. And who paid for it, in the first place.
In the beginning was Robert Moses and a federal law that allowed New York City to condemn and take over land that Moses and company had declared suitable for ‘slum clearance.’ For Cadman Plaza, the next step would have been to auction off the 10 or so acres to the highest bidder. With the approval of Moses, the winning bidder was going to build a huge, wall-like apartment building full of mostly small rental apartments. It would have stretched from the tip of the property at Middagh Street to just past Clark Street. It was a big plan and the one heralded in the colorful brochure put out by Moses.