GREENPOINT — AFTER NEARLY TWO DECADES, the CitiStorage building dividing Bushwick Inlet Park in half has been demolished. 

Bushwick Inlet Park (BIP) is a 27-acre waterfront Greenpoint and Williamsburg property that is part of a City rezoning package from 2005. The master plan established its official design in 2007 and since then BIP has been opened to the public parcel by parcel, but the process has been slow going. 

“It’s a very complicated park because of the diversity of previous owners and the level of pollutants or remediation or acquisition that each of those different parcels take,” North Brooklyn Parks Alliance Executive Director Katie Denny Horowitz said. 

The CitiStorage building is a prime example of the kinds of roadblocks BIP has faced. In 2015, the owner of the structure tried to sell the 7.5 acres property — land which was not yet owned by the City but designated in the BIP master plan. The community rallied with the “Where’s Our Park?” campaign led by the Friends Group. 18 months later, they convinced former Mayor Bill de Blasio to acquire the land for $160 million. 

“That was a steel behemoth on the waterfront,” Denny Horowitz said. “Now that it’s down … you can finally see the totality of opportunity in this pretty massive waterfront park.”  

Sources were unable to identify when BIP will be entirely complete, but the public can anticipate the opening of the next parcel — a passive seating area, come September 2025.