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Beasties Park Naming Effort Moves South
In the aftermath of the death of Beastie Boys member and Brooklyn native Adam Yauch earlier this month, a group of fans began a Facebook campaign to rename Squibb Park at the northern end of Brooklyn Heights after the famous rapper. That effort, which has attracted over 2,000 ‘Likes’ to date, recently took a turn, though, when wife of one of the surviving members of the band contacted the organizers via Facebook earlier this week to try to get everyone on the same page with an alternate plan: “I just wanted to let you know that Adam ‘Adrock’ Horovitz has already begun working with the Parks Commissioner to fix up and rename State Street Park where Yauch actually played as a kid to Adam Yauch Park. It would be great to get people behind THIS idea as it won’t hurt the Squibb family.” The State Street Park in question is at the southern end of Brooklyn Heights in Willowtown and actually already has a name–Palmetto Playground–though Park officials did confirm to Fox 5 News that they were looking into the request. State Senator Daniel Squadron has already honored Yauch with a resolution on the Senate floor.
Adam Yauch Park Closer to Reality [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
05/25/2012 10:01 AM
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‘Parks Working Out as Smoke-Free Zones, City Says’
Via City Room: “When a ban on smoking in city parks took effect one year ago, some tobacco partisans vowed it would not stick, that it was unenforceable, that they would flout it to their dying breaths. But on Wednesday the city said the ban had been largely, if not entirely, effective: the number of smokers observed in 13 selected parks in Manhattan and Brooklyn was 68 percent lower in October 2011 than in October 2010. …And all this with only a gentle puff of enforcement: 221 smoking tickets have been issued on city parkland since the ban went into effect: fewer than one per day.” The photo above was taken at a Brooklyn park yesterday evening at around 8. The face of the person smoking a cigarette has been photoshopped.
Parks Working Out as Smoke-Free Zones, City Says [City Room]
05/24/2012 10:00 AM
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Prospect Park West Medians Almost Complete
Here’s how they looked over the weekend, here’s how they looked one month ago.
Pedestrian Islands Going In on Prospect Park West [Brownstoner]
05/21/2012 2:40 PM
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Shots of the Shiny New JJ Byrne Park
We finally made our way over to the newly renovated JJ Byrne Park, which opened this past Friday off Fifth Avenue in central Park Slope. The playground now boasts lots of waterworks, new playground equipment for younger kids, a seating area for adults, and new benches and plants. Some equipment features artwork relating to the Old Stone House. It’s all the culmination of about a year of renovation work. Click through for lots more pictures. GMAP (more…)
05/15/2012 12:00 PM
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Loopy in Prospect Park? Changes Come to the Ring
Reprinted in full from Gothamist:
Back in February, in the wake of two serious collisions between cyclists and pedestrians in the often-crowded 3.3 mile Prospect Park Loop, the DOT proposed a significant redesign to change how the road gets shared. Many were disappointed the DOT didn’t use the opportunity to try banning cars completely from the park, but the new layout does shrink the real estate allocated to motorists. Here are details about the work that starts today. As you can see, the new design, being implemented this month, replaces a lane of car traffic with a dedicated bike lane intended to keep cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers out of each other’s way. (The bike lane is bifurcated to accommodate different cycling speeds.) So drivers lose a lane, bikers gain their own dedicated zone, and pedestrians get their own section on the inside track. The only thing missing is a special fenced-in lane for teenagers!
Click through for Tobias Funke’s thoughts on the matter.
Big Prospect Park Loop Lane Changes Start… Now [Gothamist] (more…)
05/14/2012 9:00 AM
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Closing Bell: JJ Byrne Park Reopens This Friday
This Friday at 11am the NYC Department of Parks and Rec will cut the ribbon for the newly renovated JJ Byrne Park in Park Slope. There’s a new play area with equipment inspired by the farming and Revolutionary history of the Old Stone House, new perimeter gardens, and adult-themed spaces like a seating area with cafe tables. Renovation work began just about a year ago.
Ribbon Cutting for JJ Byrne Playground [Park Slope Civic Council]
J.J. Byrne Playground Revamp Starts This Week [Brownstoner]
J.J. Byrne Reno To Start Next Month [Brownstoner]
Plans for J.J. Byrne Park Revealed [Brownstoner] GMAP
05/09/2012 4:00 PM
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Closing Bell: Free Tree Giveaway at Brooklyn Bridge Park
This weekend, The New York Restoration Project and MillionTreesNYC will be giving away trees at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Get your greenery this Saturday, from 10am to 12pm, on Pier Six… only the first 150 NYC residents in line will take away a tree. While the giveaway is based on a first-come, first-served basis until supplies run out, you can also reserve a tree here. Simple tree planting and care instructions will come with your tree. And if you are not within walking distance of the park, consider bringing a vehicle for tree transport.
05/08/2012 4:00 PM
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Park Field House Stirs NIMBY Emotions in The Heights
When news broke of the $40 million gift to underwrite a 115,000-square-foot field house on Pier 5 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, it seemed like a gigantic win. But now that the dust is settling, reports The Post, some members of the Brooklyn Heights community are having misgivings. “This would be devastating to the southern Heights,” said CB2 member and nearby resident Mary Goodman. “[Joralemon Street] would become the secret way to get there faster, and in a street full of babies, dogs and people, it would be disastrous.” Members of the Brooklyn Heights Association and the Willowtown Association are similarly afraid of the impact on their tranquil corner of the universe. Their solution? Create a dead-end at the bottom of Joralemon Street. Park planners agree that traffic, parking and access are all major issues that will be taken into consideration as the field house planning process moves along but did not endorse the plans to close off access from The Heights. What do you think?
05/03/2012 11:00 AM
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Construction on the Squibb Park Bridge Now Visible
Here is the very beginning of construction on the Squibb Park Bridge. Brooklyn Heights Blog noticed that space was first cleared for the pedestrian bridge a month ago. The bridge, which is slated for completion this summer, will connect people from Squibb Park, right off Columbia Heights, across Furman Street and down to Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier One. Here’s a rendering. Exciting!
Work Starting Soon on BBP’s Squibb Park Bridge, Pier 5 [Brownstoner]
04/27/2012 10:00 AM
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Brooklyn Bridge Park Gets $40 Million Donation for Community Rec Center!
Today the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation board announced that a private donor has offered $40 million to construct a year-round recreation center at Brooklyn Bridge Park. The center will be vetted via community dialogue before being built. State Senator Daniel Squadron issued a release on this news that also noted that the “board approved $66.5 million in funding from the City, including the fully-restored funding commitment secured in Senator Squadron’s and Assemblymember Millman’s agreement with the City last summer.” We’ve been asking around about who the private donor is, and all we know so far is that the donor initials are not “M.B.” Update, via the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp: “Regina Myer, president of the park, announced that Joshua Rechnitz, founder and Chairman of the New York City Fieldhouse Inc. (Fieldhouse), a not-for-profit corporation, offered to underwrite the design and construction costs of a year-round, multi-use recreation facility near Pier 5. The facility is estimated to cost $40 million and represents one of the largest donations ever made to a New York City park.”
Photo by epc
04/19/2012 1:46 PM
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Residents Don’t Want BBQ Pits at Cooper Park
Earlier this week we received some information about a controversy brewing in Williamsburg concerning the proposed addition of BBQ Pits in East Williamsburg’s Cooper Park. The Boy Scouts planned to install 10 BBQ pits and benches this Saturday at the park, near the corner of Maspeth and Morgan avenues, as park of a major renovation the park is in the midst of. Brooklyn Paper noted this morning the pits came after “more than 80 residents including many tenants at a public housing development one block from Cooper Park lobbied city officials last year to include a barbecue pit in the renovation plan.” But a tipster told us some local residents were “vehemently opposed” to the installation, given the small footprint of the park already, the possibility of losing the only undisturbed green space there, and concerns of extra foot traffic and refuse. Residents planned to demonstrate against the installation this Saturday in what was described as “Residents vs. the Boy Scouts.” At last night’s CB1 meeting, Stephanie Thayer of the Open Space Alliance addressed the issue. She said the volunteer event on Saturday has been postponed, although the BBQ pits are still coming in. She said OSA reached out to residents and wants to continue the discussion, ultimately “moving forward with the BBQ pits and making it the best possible situation for everyone.” A concerned resident later spoke at the meeting and said she was not aware of any outreach through OSA. Anyone else involved in the matter care to chime in?
Photo by chicapoquita
04/18/2012 10:00 AM
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Project for Public Spaces Levels Criticisms of Brooklyn Bridge Park Design
Brooklyn Bridge Park must surely carry the mantle as the most controversial park in history. After decades of wrangling among neighborhood groups, urban planners and politicians, the first portions of the waterfront greenspace opened in 2010 to great fanfare and almost universal praise, even as financing question marks and controversy around real estate development in the park continued to swirl. As work continues on the remaining portions of the park, including the footbridge from Brooklyn Heights, park officials have to contend with yet another round of negative nabobism. According to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, the park’s design–and by extension its designer, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.–is being attacked by a group of planners as being too disconnected from the needs of most park-goers. In a scathing quotation, Project for Public Spaces head Fred Kent says, the park is “one of the deadest waterfronts ever designed,” displaying a “massive disconnect between what people want to look at and do in a place and what designers impose on them.” Matthew Urbanski, the architect of the park, counters: “We’ve created a calm foreground that allows you to appreciate the sublime beauty of the industrial urban setting.” As the Journal points out, Kent’s criticism seems to ignore the acres of programmed space–soccer fields, volleyball courts, basketball courts and marina–that are slated for the remaining piers. Based upon the throngs of people who visit the existing portions of the park on a daily basis, it doesn’t seem like the public shares Kent’s misgivings. “Brooklyn Bridge Park succeeds magnificently at being a space people want to make their own,” says The Journal. “Pier 1, the portion closest to the foot of the bridge that was one of the first completed sections, is an assemblage of placid meadows and grassy, sloping grades that make the perfect setting for picnicking and taking in the view.”
Conflict in Park Plans [Wall Street Journal]
Article behind subscriber paywall–Google the title to get around it
04/16/2012 11:00 AM
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Renovation Complete at McLoughlin Park
A reader tipped us off that McLoughlin Park, on the corner of Tillary and Jay streets, reopened after a recent renovation. The park now sports shiny new children’s playground equipment, new benches, game tables, drinking fountains and plantings. Looks nice! GMAP
04/02/2012 12:00 PM
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How Sweet it Isn’t? Calls for Prospect Park Ice Cream Ban
The Post reports that an online brouhaha erupted on the Park Slope Parents message board over whether ice cream vendors should not be allowed in Prospect Park. The way it’s framed in the Post, the debate revolves around parents not wanting to say “no” when their kids spy the tasty treats being sold in the park. Here’s a quote: “‘I should not have to fight with my children every warm day on the playground just so someone can make a living!’ the poster wailed. ‘I too was at the 9th Street Playground on Monday, and one of the vendors just handed my 4-year-old an ice cream cone. I was furious.’” Some local parents say the debate is silly. And so do some of the nannies watching the kids of local parents: “Dixie Kissoon, a nanny who also took her charges to Harmony recently, wishes the worked-up moms and dads would just get a life. ‘They’re obnoxious,’ she said. ‘There’s no harm in this.’”
Park Slope Parents Back Ban on Ice-Cream Trucks in Prospect Park
Photo by fstopfour
04/02/2012 11:00 AM
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McCarren Park Pool Coming Along Swimmingly
Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates posted some great photos yesterday of the under-rehabilitation, WPA-era McCarren Park Pool, which is set to reopen on June 28th. Here’s what Croft has to say: “The new pool will accommodate 1,500 swimmers, a decrease of 700. The pool was closed in 1983 and became one of the Parks Department’s most public symbols of neglect. The city began renovating the pool in 2009. The pool was filled with water last week to run various tests.” Check out his blog post for other wonderful shots and more about the pool’s history.
McCarren Park Pool Set To Reopen June 28th [A Walk in the Park]
Photo by Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates
03/28/2012 12:00 PM
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Trashy to Tasteful in Prospect Park
Yesterday Daily Intel and the Brooklyn Paper reported on how the Litter Mob—the volunteer group that meets regularly to clean up trash from Prospect Park—had built out a new pathway in an area of the park known as a public sex hotspot. According to Daily Intel, the park section is known as the Vale of Cashmere: “The path is intended to direct cruisers to sex rather than the delicate plants surrounding the Midwood section of the park. The path will prevent soil erosion and protect tree roots from people walking back and forth from the ‘Vale’.” And via Brooklyn Paper: “The group — which has cleaned up pounds of condom wrappers, lube packets and other kinky unmentionables — hopes the path will keep any clothes-off activities on-trail in the Midwood section of the park. …The hillside patch of woodland, near the carousel by Center Drive, has long been a spot for gay cruising. It has also come to be known for its piles of trash, empty bottles of booze, food wrappers, and more risque refuse.”
Prospect Park Litter Mob [Official Site]
Park Slopers Build A Greener Path to Public Sex Spot [Daily Intel]
Prospect Park Do-Gooders Build Path to Pleasure [BK Paper]
Photo via Litter Mob
03/22/2012 10:15 AM
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Closing Bell: Slope Park to See Major Overhaul
Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights passed along the Parks Department rendering for a major renovation of Slope Park, on 6th Avenue between 18th and 19th streets. Work should begin this spring and last about a year. What’s planned for the reno? Multi-level decks, new playground equipment, and water play. Check out an image of the coming attractions after the jump. (more…)
03/21/2012 4:00 PM
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Farmers Markets Coming to W’Burg and Greenpoint
The organization Community Markets recently gained approval from Community Board 1 to open two farmers markets in Williamsburg this spring. The first market, at McGolrick Park, will open June 3, 2012, and run every Sunday from 11am to 4pm. (This market has been under discussion since last year.) The second market will run at Cooper Park, near the Morgan and Metropolitan avenues intersection. It also opens June 3rd and will run every Sunday from 11am to 4pm. A rep from Community Markets says, “Our goal for both markets is to recruit a complement of vendors and create an exciting market for local residents. The product mix we are striving for will include: fresh local fruits and vegetables, breads, pastries, meats as well as specialty foods such as chutneys, old fashioned pickles, salsas and jams.” Very nice!
Photo by Verbunkos
03/21/2012 11:00 AM
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Two Plazas Coming to Fort Greene, DoBro This Summer
Two public plazas will open this summer in Fort Greene and Downtown Brooklyn, one at Fowler Square and the other at Fox Square, off of Flatbush Avenue and Fulton Street. Fowler Square, a DOT project proposal rendered above that met with some resistance from nearby residents, got full support from Community Board 2′s public transportation committee last night. That plaza will be temporary and expand across South Elliott Place. Some vocal opponents opposed street closure but DOT found that the short block only sees 95 cars at peak hour times (a very low number, compared to many other blocks nearby) and is host to much more foot traffic. DOT vetted the street closure with FDNY and the Sanitation Department, and across the board DOT found closing South Elliott would have very little impact on quality of life. So, in early-to-mid May, DOT will close off the block and install moveable tables and chairs, granite blocks, epoxy gravel, and 18 new planters. The Belgian blocks and sidewalk will be repaired and more plantings will go in around General Fowler. After this temporary plaza goes in, DOT will conduct additional traffic and pedestrian studies and ask for more community feedback, presenting their findings to the board next winter. If the temporary plaza works out, it will stay in place.
Click through for updates on Fox Square, at the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Fulton Street…. (more…)
03/21/2012 10:30 AM
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Delays for Prospect Park’s Ambitious Lakeside Project
Well, this is not exactly a surprise but, as the New York Times reports today, Prospect Park’s Lakeside project—which will include new skating rinks, buildings and a major amount of landscaping—is behind schedule. The big news is that the skating rinks and the rest of project aren’t expected to open until fall of 2013, as opposed to this January. Here’s the long and short of it: “Lakeside, a $74 million, 26-acre undertaking, is the first major construction project in 50 years in Prospect Park. It is intended to reinvigorate a long-neglected portion of the park and accommodate the 10 million visitors now streaming to the 585-acre Brooklyn oasis each year. Now, more than five years after plans were announced and two winters after the decrepit Kate Wollman Rink was torn down, the project is half-built and half-imagined.” The article also compares the respective budgets of Central Park and Prospect Park, both of which receive some city funding: Central operates with a $42.4 million budget, while Prospect gets by with $8.3 million, and Lakeside’s financing doesn’t come from the regular budget. This is the other very relevant quote in the story: “The project is emblematic of a park in transition — from a crime-ridden, dilapidated den of 25 years ago to a vibrant, rustic haven struggling to keep pace with maintenance and use demands despite a thinning budget.” Aside from all that, and the fact that it’s a drag that the delays are keeping the rinks from opening, there are a bunch of details in the story about some of Lakeside elements that are supposed to sound pretty darn cool, like “20,000 square feet of bluestone for the walkway beneath a majestic semicircle of London plane trees” and “six new cast bronze urns, based on the original Olmsted and Vaux design.”
At Prospect Park, a Transformation Is Behind Schedule [NY Times]
Recent photos of Lakeside construction from the Prospect Park Alliance
03/20/2012 9:30 AM
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adam_dahill
May 21, 2012 | 02:16 PM