Long-Awaited Section of Bushwick Inlet Park Opens to the Public

by Kirstyn Brendlen, Brooklyn Paper

A newly opened green space is putting the “inlet” back in Bushwick Inlet Park.

The small but lush Motiva parcel, wrapped around the inlet at the northern edge of the patchwork park, officially opened to the public last week.

Once home to a shipbuilding operation, Motiva had been vacant since the 1960s, fenced off and filled with invasive plants. The city purchased the 1.8-acre plot from fossil fuel company Motiva — hence its name — in 2014 as part of its 20-year-long effort to build out all of Bushwick Inlet Park.

Its new design nods to Motiva’s origin as a tidal wetland, with a winding walking bath, a small beach and kayak launch, and a huge variety of native plants, including a yet-to-bloom wildflower meadow.

On a sunny weekday morning, Motiva was filled with Brooklynites of all kinds. Parents and toddlers played on the small sandy beach, joined briefly by a pair of Canada geese and their small fuzzy goslings. Joggers and dog walkers strolled its curved paths and sat down to enjoy the sun and the view of the water.

Before the park opened, it was impossible to take in the breadth of the inlet, said Steve Chesler, a member of Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park.

“I’m really in awe just being in here to see how vast it is, just the power of being near a natural body of water like this,” Chesler said.

Motiva also includes some natural flood protections, Chesler explained. The path is lined with raised berms, grassy man-made hills designed to help control coastal storm surge.

Coastal Williamsburg and Greenpoint are low lying and flood prone, said Katherine Conkling Thompson, president of Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park. During Hurricane Sandy, floodwaters rose up to 12 feet above sea level. Just a few days after the park opened, typical high tides had already carried sand from Motiva’s miniature beach up and onto the walking path.

The wildflower meadow and the lush native grasses and plants will also provide a “sponge effect” for rainwater, Conkling Thompson said.

The inlet is also a critical wildlife habitat. New York City is a migratory bird superhighway and a temporary home to dozens of species.

Along with the Canada geese, the inlet in early May was quite literally swimming with ducks – including gadwalls, an American black duck, and a lone common merganser — and Brant geese. Shorebirds, including a killdeer and a sandpiper, explored the rocks at the edge of the water.

The park is set to become an official part of the state’s designated birding trail, Chesler said.

There’s a lot going on below the surface of the water, too. There are 16 oyster cages in the middle of the inlet, and the bivalves are “thriving,” Conkling Thompson said.

This summer, Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park will start a new maritime project, planting vertical kelp gardens in partnership with Seaweed City. The nonprofit believe the kelp gardens can improve water quality and strengthen marine ecosystems. The mature seaweed will be harvested, dried, and used as fertilizer in the park, Conkling Thompson said.

Troubles remain for Bushwick Inlet Park
Though the brand new Motiva parcel was a cause for celebration in Williamsburg, it also sparked frustration.

The city promised to develop the 27-acre Bushwick Inlet Park as part of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning in 2005. More than 20 years later, only three sections of the park — 86 Kent, 50 Kent, and Motiva — are finished.

Council Member Lincoln Restler said the Motiva site is “magnificently beautiful,” and that he was thrilled to see a little more of the waterfront open up to Brooklynites.

“I am more focused than ever on trying to get the rest of this park on a pathway toward remediation, design, and construction,” he said.

It took decades for the city to acquire all the land it needed to create the park, and the finished sections are divided by acres of untouched industrial land at the former CitiStorage and Bayside Oil sites.

Both plots will need to be remediated before construction can begin, but cleanup hasn’t even started. Utility giant National Grid and Exxon are locked in a legal battle over remediation of the CitiStorage site; Exxon, Chevron, and New York City are debating who’s responsible for what contaminants at Bayside.

“A healthy majority of the site is stuck in a purgatory of uncooperative fossil fuel companies,” Restler said. “National Grid has been an unwilling partner, litigious and slow and altogether uninterested in being a helpful partner in cleaning up their contamination, despite a consent decree that obligates them to do so.”

National Grid pushed back on those allegations, saying it has been working closely with DEC on investigation and remediation for years.

“Other industrial parties who are accountable due to their past operations in the proposed park have failed to even perform preliminary investigations of their contamination and are preventing work on the proposed park from advancing, said company rep Alexander Starr. “National Grid continues to meet with stakeholders to provide updates about its work and continues to coordinate with NYSDEC and NYC Parks on the project.”

Restler recently took Mayor Zohran Mamdani on a tour of the site so he could experience the city’s “unfulfilled promise” firsthand. Mamdani’s administration has been more supportive than Eric Adams’ was, he said.

“I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to advance more aggressive legal strategies that force these fossil fuel companies to get their act together, clean up their mess, and pay their fair share of the remediation,” Restler said.

Meanwhile, Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park are concerned that a proposed high-rise development just north of the park, Monitor Point, would threaten the park’s ecosystems, cause overcrowding, and drive up rents.

The development, proposed for an MTA-owned site at 40 Quay Street, includes a pair of towers rising 600 and 450 feet, respectively, with a third smaller building across the street. Developers say Monitor Point would bring more open space — connecting to the edge of the Motiva parcel – and affordable housing.

“The opening of this space is a real milestone for north Brooklyn. But the northernmost path in that new section ends at a fence, blocking potential waterfront access — because the land beyond it is sitting undeveloped, waiting for a viable project with the resources to actually deliver. Monitor Point is that project,” said Bryan Kelly, president of development at Gotham.

Gotham is seeking a rezoning for the project. Both Community Board 1 and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso have given the project their conditional approval, and it will head next to the City Planning Commission, then the City Council.

Restler has spoken against the project, and said he won’t support it without a clear path forward to finishing Bushwick Inlet Park.

“That’s not the only priority in that rezoning, but it is a crisp one,” he said. “I cannot support this project if the majority of the housing is not affordable, and if we don’t have a clear path forward on the completion of Bushwick Inlet Park.”

Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran in Brooklyn Paper. Click here to see the original story.

Related Stories

• Locals Split Over Mixed-Use Development Proposed for MTA Greenpoint Waterfront Site
• Demo of CitiStorage on Williamsburg Waterfront Is Finally Happening
• Locals Push for Completion of Long-Delayed Bushwick Inlet Park

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