…When Doctoroff paints his masterpiece.

“If you go from the border of Queens at Newtown Creek all the way to Coney Island twenty years from now, on almost every stretch of that waterfront you will see something very different than there is today.” So spake Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff. It’s certainly starting to feel like that’s a real possibility, despite New York’s long history of not seeing through master plans. And while we feel naturally protective of the small-town feel that has defined Brooklyn for long, we do agree with Amanda Burden when she says that parks and housing are preferable to power plants and transfer stations. The reality is that the city needs more housing and we would rather see it in these largely undeveloped swaths than plunked down in the middle of existing smaller-scale, low-density neighborhoods. In the best case scenario (like, in our opinion, the Richard Rogers design above), this will also provide an opportunity for the city to take a leadership role in modern architecture; in the worst case scenario, the waterfront will be lined with a bunch of mediocre housing complexes like Schaefer Landing in Williamsburg.
Waterfront in 2016 [New York Magazine]