Saving Montague Street: BHA survey seeks plan for revitalization of Brooklyn Heights’ ‘Main Street’
One-fifth of Montague storefronts empty amid COVID crisis
Several empty storefronts on the north side of Montague Street. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
Montague Street is a unique commercial strip, with a civic center at one end and the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, a popular tourist attraction, at the other.
The unofficial “Main Street” of New York’s first historic district should be a dream location for popular retail stores and restaurants, but the street has been plagued by vacancies for decades. Now, amid COVID-19, the bottom is falling out.
“I will not easily forget those early weeks of the COVID shutdown when we were going out once a week, and Montague Street was completely deserted,” Erika Belsey Worth, president of the Brooklyn Heights Association, told the Brooklyn Eagle recently. Worth, an architect, moved to Montague Street with her husband and their two sons in 2001.
“As I walk down the street now, the many darkened storefronts are a reminder of that emptiness, and a warning,” Worth said. “A flourishing Montague Street is important to Brooklyn Heights, and now is a critical time to focus on both bringing it back and making it better.”
BHA has been grappling with the issue of Montague Street for years. Now the organization, in cooperation with the Montague Street Business Improvement District and others, is using this down time to develop a comprehensive plan to revitalize the neighborhood’s commercial streets once the city reopens for business.
To help, residents are asked to complete a survey by Dec. 18. BHA will share the data gathered with the community, the BID, landlords, business owners and elected officials. (The owners of the The Heights Cafe and Dellarocco’s have donated a $50 gift card as an incentive. The winner will be drawn at random from the responses.)
As a service to help readers understand the issue, the Eagle has undertaken an in-depth study of the ailing shopping strip, speaking with Montague Street business owners, landlords and shoppers. In our report, we remember the Montague Street of the past and some of its unique shops, the problems large crowds of shoppers brought to the street in the ’70s and ’80s, and the protests that broke out as rents increased and beloved businesses were forced to close. We shine a spotlight on the reasons behind the street’s long-vacant storefronts, and discuss solutions brainstormed by urban planners, landlords, business owners and shoppers.
The Eagle invites readers to join in this vital discussion. Take the BHA Montague Street survey here.
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when the pandemic hit.. brooklyn heights ran away, ,this is the result .BHA members left their community and this is the result
I’m a BHA member, and I didn’t cut and run.
You’re just permanently angry because of the fight over the Heights branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.
you may not have cut and run.. but many many BHA members did.. why not do the numbers… ask the local merchants