Community Eco Dock Opened at BBP This Weekend
This Saturday, Brooklyn Bridge Park opened a new kayaking dock at Pier Two. The dock will allow more, free kayaking and boating programs for park visitors this summer. The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance spearheaded the project, dubbed the “Community Eco Dock.” It’s a floating dock that rises and falls with the tide, and it’s very cost-effective…
This Saturday, Brooklyn Bridge Park opened a new kayaking dock at Pier Two. The dock will allow more, free kayaking and boating programs for park visitors this summer. The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance spearheaded the project, dubbed the “Community Eco Dock.” It’s a floating dock that rises and falls with the tide, and it’s very cost-effective to build and maintain. (It cost $170,000 to build.) It’s 20 feet by 40 feet, with a 5-foot-wide gangway. The dock is only open to programmed, supervised kayaking by the Brooklyn Bridge Park; the park regularly hosts free public kayaking sessions on the weekends. Pier Two, which will feature athletic courts, an in-line skating rink, swings, picnic tables, and a fitness area, is still under construction and should open by the end of this year. Until then, the eco dock is accessible via the park’s greenway. The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance is now looking to install a similar dock in Bay Ridge, at the 69th Street Pier, and that location should open this fall.
Photo by Leigh Trucks for Brooklyn Bridge Park
Fear not. It’s ocean water, swept in and out with the tides every six hours, between the open Atlantic and Long Island Sound. The East River is a strait, not a river. Yes, with heavy rains there is noxious runoff from city drainage systems into the East River and Hudson both, which is why the public kayaking program is suspended if rains exceed an inch for the previous day. Even then, 24 hours later, water quality is usually back to being surprisingly good – especially along the piers south of the Brooklyn Bridge. Just ask the stripers and bluefish passing by …