News Brooklyn Heights

The Brooklyn Heights Promenade won’t be torn down — and residents are relieved

‘It would have been devastating to the neighborhood’

February 3, 2020 Lore Croghan
A panel recommended that the Brooklyn Heights Promenade not be replaced with a BQE bypass. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
Visitors walk along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
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They’re breathing a collective sigh of relief on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, because it won’t be demolished for BQE repairs.

The mood on the landmarked walkway was upbeat on Sunday thanks to the news that a mayor-appointed panel recommended that the city Department of Transportation not build a temporary highway on the Promenade or in Brooklyn Bridge Park during the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway fix-up.

“I am happy that it’s going to stay,” Sacha Maric, who has lived in Brooklyn Heights for six years, said of the Promenade on Sunday. “The lack of extra pollution will be a good thing, too.”

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The DOT’s original plan for handling BQE repairs called for the Promenade to be replaced with a six-lane BQE bypass for six to eight years. This temporary highway would have brought noise and pollution from 153,000 vehicles per day into Brooklyn Heights.

Toxic particulate matter released by the cars and trucks would have endangered the health of Brooklyn Heights residents — and children attending school in the neighborhood, Laurie Garrett, former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, warned in a December 2018 Brooklyn Eagle story.

Sacha Maric, with daughters Alma (at left) and Eleanor (at right), is glad the Promenade won’t be torn down. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
Sacha Maric, with daughters Alma (at left) and Eleanor (at right), is glad the Promenade won’t be torn down. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

Maric, who was at the Promenade’s playground with daughters Eleanor and Alma on Sunday, said the esplanade’s an excellent place to spend family time, and that the scenery is stellar. “It’s the most beautiful view of Downtown Manhattan,” he said.

On Friday, a spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed to the Eagle that the administration embraces the BQE panel’s recommendation to leave the Promenade intact.

The recommendation was contained in a much-anticipated report the panel released on Thursday night.

The panel, headed by New York Building Congress President and CEO Carlo Scissura, also recommended that a 1.5-mile section of the BQE be repaired right away. This portion of the highway includes a triple cantilever that underpins the promenade.

If de Blasio had said yes to replacing the Promenade with a six-lane BQE bypass, “it would have been devastating to the neighborhood,” Brooklyn Heights resident Madeleine Campbell told the Eagle.

Madeleine Campbell always brings visiting friends and family to the Promenade. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
Madeleine Campbell always brings visiting friends and family to the Promenade. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

“If there’s a way that the BQE can be repaired without defacing this public landmark, then that’s wonderful. I’m all for it,” Campbell said. “I know it won’t be easy or simple, but if it can be done without destroying this wonderful place, then of course, that’s great.”

She was strolling on the Promenade on Sunday with her brother and his girlfriend, who were visiting from North Carolina. The Promenade is the first place Campbell takes out-of-town friends and family members when they come to see her, she said.

During warm-weather months, Campbell takes daily walks on the iconic esplanade.

On Friday, de Blasio announced an enforcement crackdown to keep overweight trucks off the BQE and an immediate start to highway repairs.

“Just the thought of seeing traffic right here at the end of the Promenade was ridiculous,” said Brooklyn Heights resident David Weeks, who was walking his dog Milo on the esplanade on Sunday. “What they were talking about doing was so harsh,” he said.

David Weeks, with his dog Milo, says the proposal to construct a BQE bypass was “so harsh.” Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
David Weeks, with his dog Milo, says the proposal to construct a BQE bypass was “so harsh.” Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

“With all the changes throughout the city, I feel like this is one of the few neighborhoods that maintains its original flavor,” Weeks said.

The demolition threat has been hanging over the promenade since September 2018, when DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg announced the agency’s proposal to demolish it — and the trees growing on it as well — to construct the six-lane BQE bypass. This temporary highway would have cut across Columbia Heights near Cranberry Street and also would have necessitated the temporary demolition of Harry Chapin Playground.

Neighborhood residents, public officials and environmentalists cried foul. A public protest was staged in January 2019. The BQE panel was convened in April 2019.

Having the bypass take the place of the Promenade would have been “horrible,” Brooklyn Heights resident Carolyn Zintel said while walking her dog Dally on Sunday.

“There’s been construction everywhere. And we’re just under too much stress. It’s just too unnerving,” said Zintel.

Carolyn Zintel and her dog Dally take daily walks on the Promenade. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
Carolyn Zintel and her dog Dally take daily walks on the Promenade. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

Zintel was referring to redevelopment projects at Brooklyn Heights properties that the Jehovah’s Witnesses sold over the past several years while in the process of relocating their world headquarters from the neighborhood to Warwick, New York.

“We moved here because it’s a quiet neighborhood — and it hasn’t been very quiet recently,” Zintel said. “And this would just make it worse.”

“There was no reason to even think of doing this. So I’m glad it’s off the table,” Stella Varveris, a native Brooklynite who now lives in Manhattan, said of DOT’s proposal to tear down the Promenade and replace it with the BQE bypass.

Nelson Simon and Stella Varveris savor the Promenade’s scenic views. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
Nelson Simon and Stella Varveris savor the Promenade’s scenic views. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

She was sharing her Sunday afternoon on the Promenade with Nelson Simon, a Prospect Lefferts Gardens resident.

He said he was glad de Blasio appointed the BQE panel and that they recommended the Promenade be preserved — “especially now as we’re losing Brooklyn, we’re losing the flavor of Brooklyn, we’re losing who we are.”

According to the late Henrik Krogius, who was the editor of the Eagle’s sister publication, the Brooklyn Heights Press, the Promenade’s design was finalized in 1943. The first section of the Promenade opened in October 1950 and the remaining portion opened in December 1951.

The BQE and the Promenade were constructed under the leadership of autocratic infrastructure builder Robert Moses. According to Krogius, there were six different possible routes through Brooklyn Heights for the BQE — and the one Moses preferred, but ultimately didn’t choose, ran along Hicks Street, which would have divided the neighborhood.

The proposed BQE bypass would have run right alongside these homes overlooking the Promenade. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
The proposed BQE bypass would have run right alongside these homes overlooking the Promenade. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

Krogius’s research about the famous esplanade was compiled into a book, “The Brooklyn Heights Promenade,” which was published in 2011.

Follow reporter Lore Croghan on Twitter.


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5 Comments

  1. it's onlymoney

    As someone who has lived in that area for quite some time- don’t believe it would of been that devastating to residents nearby-many don’t use the promenade. It’s also needs repairs as well. Think the objection was more about the noise and fumes of cars and trucks then losing promenade (temporarily).

    February 3, 2020 at 2:33 pm
    Reply
    • Tom

      I agree. Residence in Brooklyn Heights have always been a spoiled group (not everyone). Mayor LaGuardia and Robert Moses both had the idea of pushing traffic into neighborhoods to create commerce. Not such a great idea now. However, the BQE is where it is. In 2020 the 150k+ that travel the BQE daily and it’s importance in NY daily life should override the emotions of the few in BH.
      By the way I lived there over 30 years and should have an equal voice in the importance of both the BQE and the promenade.

      February 3, 2020 at 9:21 pm
      Reply
  2. Arguendo

    Heights residents have been NIMBYs since Roebling besmirched their views up-river. They’ll insist on methods that externalize costs to others, maximize delayed and stopped, polluting BQE traffic, and that divert traffic to local streets.

    February 4, 2020 at 7:57 am
    Reply