Empire-Fulton Ferry Park Temporarily Closing
This news got buried in the end-of-year shuffle, so it seemed worthwhile to give it a fresh airing: Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park is going to be closed for a year and a half. When it reopens in spring 2011, it will be part of Brooklyn Bridge Park. It’s going to be extensively renovated and, most…
This news got buried in the end-of-year shuffle, so it seemed worthwhile to give it a fresh airing: Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park is going to be closed for a year and a half. When it reopens in spring 2011, it will be part of Brooklyn Bridge Park. It’s going to be extensively renovated and, most excitingly, will be the future home of Jane’s Carousel. While the park is closed, the Movies With a View summer series will be held at the new Pier 1.
Empire-Fulton Ferry Park To Close Jan. 1 [Brooklyn Daily Eagle] GMAP
Pony – I don’t know what your agenda is, but all your doing is spreading lies. Walentas does not plan on tearing down Empire Stores. He has NEVER proposed that. You’re making up a controversy. Also, any changes to the building would require approval from the the State Preservation Office which would obviously never approve tearing it down. Go spread your lies somewhere else.
Also, the lights in the park are still being fine tuned and have not yet been calibrated, so let’s wait until the park actually opens before spreading even more lies about the lighting in the park.
@Minard – Walentas wants to tear down the Empire Stores. They neighborhood has been fighting him on this and the many other shitty things he wants to do to the neighborhood (obviously Dock St is still a major problem).
The lights being added to Empire Fulton Ferry State Park are most likely the same style of lights that the neighborhood is fighting at the new Brooklyn Bridge Park. They make the waterfront look like nothing short of a Target parking lot.
Yes – this is the park that doesn’t allow dogs – hopefully that will change when they reopen.
amazing. if it weren’t for walentas there would be nothing down there. why is the state hesitating to hand over the decrepit empire stores to him? He’s the only one who can finance a rehab of those buildings.
No. You misunderstand me. The funds for the renovation of Empire Fulton Ferry Park is being paid for from a $3.5 million donation from Walentas. No public money is being used to renovate the park. Walentas will donates the carousel, install it, build a building around it and donate $3.5 million to the park so that they can do the renovation work on the park (extend the lawn, put in lights, fix the drainage). This has all been reported on a couple of times already.
I’m not worried about the carousel. That will happen. But they do not have to shut the whole park in order to install the carousel and its new pavilion. The rest of the work is public funds and that’s what is worrisome.
According to some articles I remember reading some weeks ago, the construction budget for the renovation of this park is coming from David and Jane Walentas as part of their donation of the carousel. $3.5 million, I believe. While I agree that Albany is a mess, I don’t think that will have a direct impact on this construction.
How the operation budget will be funded is still up in the air. I don’t think we will be seeing new condos being built any time soon and 360 Furman’s PILOTs can only stretch so far. But the budget I’m worried about is the construction budget, the capital budget. That has to come from ALbany.
Albany is broke. It is cutting back on public school funds. The State is a mess. The more they up taxes, the more people and businesses pack up and leave. No one seems to understand that in the Rockefeller-built marble halls of Albania.
The park is being closed to install the carousel and also to extend the lawn significantly and to fix the horrible drainage problems that always turn that lawn into a mud pit when it rains. Also they’re installing lighting so the park will be able to be open at night (up until now it closed at dusk). When it re-opens it’ll be operated by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp, not state parks, which means that they will likely allow dogs. Also it means that their operations budget is coming from the development sites, not from the state parks operations budget.