Boerum Place Getting Spruced Up

Downtown Brooklyn’s gritty gateway doesn’t exactly scream million-dollar condos and boutique hotels…yet. While those things are being built, the city is busying itself with streetscape improvements like the one above, at right, a stretch of Boerum Place between Livingston and Joralemon Streets, which will also include new sidewalks and curb extensions. According to a Downtown Brooklyn Partnership spokesman, by the end of the summer it should look something like the existing Boerum Place streetscape, above left, creating a continuous planted median from the Brooklyn Bridge to Atlantic Avenue. Next, the city plans to begin its Fulton Street Mall, Flatbush and Myrtle Avenue streetscape improvements. “These projects are creating grand entrances, whether it be coming from the bridge down Flatbush or coming down Flatbush from the other direction,” said the spokesman, adding that the improvements includes traffic calming measures and safer pedestrian crossings.