Brooklyn Bridge Park: Private-Public Pros and Cons
Brooklyn Bridge Park [is] perched atop a ribbon of piers, and already hailed for its design and scope. But the park is taking shape only in fits and starts, and even opening the small part that is complete has been delayed until spring as the city and state hash out questions of money and control….
Brooklyn Bridge Park [is] perched atop a ribbon of piers, and already hailed for its design and scope. But the park is taking shape only in fits and starts, and even opening the small part that is complete has been delayed until spring as the city and state hash out questions of money and control. Despite 20 years of planning, work has barely begun on the bulk of the project. The $350 million construction budget is still short $125 million, and no one is sure who will come up with the $16 million needed each year for operations and maintenance — New York Times
Pier 6 Rendering from BBP Conservancy.
it is interesting to revisit threads like this after a few days. I am old and I have seen a lot of shit in my time. the opposition to the park is sheer racism. sorry, that’s the way it is. I hit a nerve and bklyn20 became totally incoherent. Me an employee of brownstoner or BBP? Yikes! Your prescription needs refilling.
Yes, I hit a nerve, the truth can hurt when it is spelled out. Big Lies depend on the public’s ability to suppress what they know to be the truth.
1) Maybe you don’t realize it, but accusing people of only holding their well-though out positions only because it furthers their hidden private agendas is just as insulting as anything Minard, G-man or I have said about you in this thread. So think about that before you try to claim the high ground.
2) The list of parks in poor neighborhoods in need is very large, and the parks department is always underfunded. My point is that the situation would be WORSE, not better if not for private fund raising being done by the central part conservancy. Whatever money currently goes to upper manhattan parks would be even less if the parks department also had to shoulder the burden of paying for all the maintenance of Central Park. I think you know that one too, even if you won’t admit it here.
Unlike those of bkre, G-man and Minard Lafever, my posts did not have any stark raving insults. We disagree on this issue. People are allowed to have differences of opinion, including those who have conflicts of interest of various kinds.
Bkre, please ask people in Upper Manhattan and Harlem if the fund-raising — actually, the very existence — of the Central Park Conservancy has allowed the city to repair and improve their (Upper Manhattan’s) parks. I think you know the answer, but I doubt you will admit to it here.
G-man, what do you know about the workings of Community Board 2? Perhaps you work for an agency or elected official that pushed the housing into the park? Or maybe you have been part of one of the earlier sham organizations purporting to represent the community in park dealings? You will deny it, but I am free to ask the question. And in this case there is no mistaken identity.
Yes, I shouldn’t type early in the morning. I am very relieved that the knowledgeable and always civil M. Morris was NOT the writer of the post I objected to. However, I do think that this blog is biased in favor of the current BBP and its organizations. That is the webmaster’s prerogative. It is also a blog centered on property ownership and the real estate market. Yet it has lots of very good information and some intelligent and worthwhile people writing on it. Some very funny ones, too.
Not that some of you care, but I don’t think I know everything. I just disagree with some people. But I am not discouraged, because quite a lot of intelligent, involved people agree with me.
bklyn20 – as I’ve already told you, I’m not a broker. Assuming that I’m a broker because my login is bkre is about as intelligent as me assuming that you have molested 20 underage brooklyn boys, and that’s why your login is bklyn20. If you insist on perpetuating your lies about me based on my login, then I will do the same.
The person who write for brownstoner is Montrose Morris, not Minard. Why does everyone who think you that you’re full of shit have to have some deep dark conspiracy-theory inspired conflict of interest? Maybe they are just intelligent people who see through your idiotic arguments?
Personally, I’m not sure that Minard is correct in assuming that the reason that people like you are against this park is because of racism. I try to avoid throwing around those kind of accusations unless i have more proof. I think that people like you just think that you know more than anyone else on the planet and despite the fact that we are dealing in an area where you have ZERO expertise, and despite the fact that all available empirical evidence points against you, you insist on maligning the good folks who are trying to make our communities better by building a world class park.
Now on to your argument – saying that parks will never get built in poor neighborhoods is another clear lie. You’ve actually completely turned the truth on its head on this one. The fact is that the parks department has limited funds to pay for new parks. Therefore, if you set up a model where parks in wealthy neighborhoods, where real estate is valuable, follow the BBP model, then that would FREE up resources to allow the city parks department to pay for parks in neighborhoods that couldn’t avail themselves of the BBP model. As we speak the parks department is building or planning dozens of parks in the poorer neighborhoods of the City. They would NOT be able to afford to maintain these parks if they had to take on the $16 million to maintain BBP. DO you even think before you type?
P.S.: I am getting a clearer idea of why you weren’t reappointed to Community Board 2.
That’s such a pile of hooey.
I think I know the reason for Minard’s sudden change from educated civility to slanderous nonsequitur. I believe Minard is an now employee of brownstoner.com, correct? Or perhaps Minard is the next in line to become an employee of Brownstoner? I had thought this was a very good thing. Evidently not.
The conflict of interest here is that the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy is a major advertiser on Brownstoner. And where is the Brooklyn Flea, another major Brownstoner business, held in Summer? Oh, yes — under the Brooklyn Bridge’s Brooklyn Piers. That’s land controlled by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy.
Please notice that I am using conditional language in my post. That courtesy was not extended to me in the earlier post maligning me and my neighbors.
Perhaps people with such a vested interest should not weigh in on projects that contribute to their paycheck.
Minard Lafever, I am sadly surprised that an intelligent individual like you seems to believe the hype. Maybe you drank the Kool-Aid at a recent Sunset Samba/Siesta?/Luau?? Bkre, I know all about your conflict of interest, and I am pondering whether Minard has one as well.
The reason so many intelligent people in the South Heights and elsewhere want a housing-free (or at least housing-minimal) park is precisely this: BECAUSE parks that are financed by housing will be built in affluent areas where housing is valuable. Such parks will inherently prevent less advantaged citizens, whatever race they may be, from having large and well-designed parks in their neighborhoods.
What developer will build housing for a self-sustaining park (capital maintenance as well as basic operational maintenance) in, say, East New York? No developer will do this, because there is no serious money to be made on real estate in East New York. So the people already living there will be stuck with cracked pavement, broken playground equipment, and padlocked “comfort stations.” People in the Gowanus and Red Hook Houses recently approved a deal allowing St. Xavier, a nearby private school, to basically own the Red Hook athletic fields during daylight hours. Do poor kids only play outside after dark?
“From the CB 6 minutes, 9/30/09:
Continued discussion of potential football field rehabilitation plans for the Red Hook Recreation Area.
A presentation was made by Rod Walken and Jim Belosi from St. Xavier.
The cost of rehabilitation is 1.2 million and perhaps a bit more. St. Xavier wants to use it for football. It can also be used for soccer. They want to use the field after school and on weekends (4 Saturdays for the football session – September through Thanksgiving. The field would be a turf field.”
St Xavier made a whopping donation in order to control the fields and use them at hours of their own choosing. Feeling that this was the only was to gert better playing fields, the local Red Hook and Gowanus community endorsed the deal — they thought that it was the only way to get the fields repaired. Maybe they should have asked for a luxury conod in the middle of it all.
Parks that can contribute funds to their operational maintenance budgets should do so where appropriate. But a “World Class Park” shouldn’t have luxury housing within its borders — it should be open green space for all. Users of public playing fields should not feel a need sell their souls for a few hours after dark on a turf field. Before you start slinging mud, please remember that Willowtown is by far the most diverse community in Brooklyn Heights – economically diverse, ethnically diverse, raciallydiverse, sexual-orientationally, if that’s a word, diverse. The grandchildren of longshoremen still live among us, next door to bankers, artists and schoolteachers. The Head of Tenants for an historic rent-controlled building is on the board of the (democratically elected) Willowtown Association. Do the Conservancy/ESDC have a representative, elected citizen’s organization, aka the CAC, or Citizen’s Advisory Committee? No, although they’ve been promising one for over a year now. What real, informed people think is of ZERO interest to them. They are concerned with keeping their big donors happy so they can pay their lobbyists to keep their privatized park, paid for by all of our public money.
Unfortunately, I think I heard some time ago that the owners of the One BBP condo building (the old Jehovah’s Witness building) are bound by an agreement between the sponsor/developer and the city/state to help pay for the park’s annual maintenance. This could be mean inflated common charges for the owners.