BHA’s 2023 Annual Meeting: Adams praised, cajoled on BQE
This year’s panel: ‘Rethinking the Public Realm’
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — The chapel at Packer Collegiate Institute was nearly filled Wednesday night for the Brooklyn Heights Association’s (BHA) 2023 Annual Meeting. It was the first in-person meeting for BHA since 2020.
BHA President Koren Volk led off with a topic that has been an active focus of the neighborhood organization for years: the reconstruction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, in particular BQE Central, the segment that includes the crumbling Triple Cantilever supporting the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
Volk stated firmly that the organization applauded the Adams administration “for determining that it had to prioritize a long-term solution for the entire BQE corridor.” However, she also made it clear that the organization believes the entire corridor should be slimmed down to four lanes, as opposed to six — a stance supported by Brooklyn officials up and down the highway, but something that the administration has not committed to.
“BHA applauds the Adams administration for having the vision to look beyond a patchwork collection of BQE repairs,” Volk said. “Mayor [Eric] Adams could actually go down in history books as the man who righted the wrongs of Robert Moses. But we need a solution that improves quality of life, reduces greenhouse gases and reverses the trends in poor public health for everyone who lives or works near the BQE. We need a bold and innovative solution, and the path to bold and innovative is four lanes, not six,” she said to applause.