BHA Meeting Notes: Skyscraper District Proposed

Brownstoner correspondent Whitbo reports on last night’s Brooklyn Heights Association meeting…

Last night was the 95th consecutive annual meeting of the BHA. Nancy Bowe, the president presided over a packed house at the St. Francis College Auditorium on Remsen Street. There were probably 200 people there. Besides Marty Markowitz, there were many other politicians representing the neighborhood, including David Yassky, our City Councilman and many others from the city and state level.
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Nancy Bowe discussed an effort to preserve some of the historic tall buildings in the neighborhood that fall just outside the existing Historic District. There’s a proposal to create a new Borough Hall Skyscraper District to protect these buildings that would encompass the buildings between Clinton and Boerum Place, from Pierrepont to Livingston Streets.

The major item on the agenda was the update to the planned development of Brooklyn Bridge Park, which particularly effects Brooklyn Heights. The government agency created to oversee the planning of the park, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation (BBPDC) has thus far been reluctant to present the existing plans to the community at large. Representatives of the BHA and other neighborhood representatives have seen the plans and have generally good things to say about the proposal, though with some reservations. There are two very important meetings coming up that all Brooklynites with interest in the project should attend. The first is a Community Board Meeting on next Tuesday, February 22nd at Polytechnic University, 5 Metrotech Center where the BBPDC will make its first formal presentation to the general public. The second meeting was just announced and will be March 3rd at PS 287 (details will be posted on the BHA website shortly.

Also at the meeting, author and historian Phillip Lopate gave a great talk about the history of the New York waterfront and how New Yorkers’ interactions with and perceptions of the rivers and harbour have changed over the years.