StreetsBlog first mentioned the news release from the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront Local Development Corporation yesterday. From the press release:

The study will kick off with an open public meeting to be held at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 4 at the auditorium at St. Francis College. The meeting will be the first in a series of open public meetings to discuss access issues concerning the new park.

Sam Schwartz PLLC will be leading a multi-disciplinary team of traffic engineers, transportation planners and architects studying various transportation and access alternatives. The study will focus solely on an examination of how to improve transportation and access to-and-from the park. The study will explore a variety of topics including potential vertical connections from Brooklyn Heights, subway access, bike lanes, greenway connections, jitney buses, waterborne transportation and improved pedestrian accommodations on Old Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue.

I personally hope that Brooklyn Bridge Park will be like Vancouver’s Granville Island, an urban planning success story. It has wonderful public spaces, a great farmer’s market and restaurants, local crafts, stores, and brings in local people and tourists. Parking is tight, but controlled and there are other means of public transportation to the area. Brooklyn Bridge Park has the luxury of more space and a long waterfront, so let’s hope community organizations such as Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund and local politicians can learn from other urban success stories. What’s your ideal BB Park?

Also seen on:
{Checking Back in on Brooklyn Bridge Park, Gowanus Lounge}
{Aiming to Reduce Car Use Around Brooklyn’s New Park, StreetsBlog}
{Waterfront Park Aims to Reduce Car Use, Brooklyn Record}

   Photo by alba

Date: Thursday, September 21, 2006
Location: Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park section of Brooklyn Bridge Park

Grab a blanket or lawn chair and go to Movies With a View for a special double feature of
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure at 7:00 p.m.
The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert at 9:00 p.m.

Shows are FREE!

Movies With a View features fresh-popped popcorn, beach chair rentals, refreshments by RICE, and one of New York City’s most spectacular views.

Visit BrooklynBridgePark.org for more information.

82 DECIBELS by Larry Keigwin
Sun, Sept. 17, 1:30 and 5:00 PM
Tues., Sept 19, 6 PM
Tobacco Warehouse in Empire Fulton Ferry State Park section of Brooklyn Bridge Park
FREE!!!

“A wacky romp for 25 pedestrians and dancers, inspired by the actual sound level at the Tobacco Warehouse, and by the nature of city sidewalk traffic. Expanded from the seven-minute work Keigwin created for last year’s BREAKING GROUND- A Dance Charrette.”

From NY Times:

Last summer Dancing in the Streets presented its first “dance charrette,” in which five choreographers were asked to fashion a short dance for a site they were told about only five days before. There has already been a second installment this summer, but a hit from the 2005 show, Larry Keigwin’s “82 Decibels,” will be presented again this week in expanded form (20 minutes, not 7) at the 2005 site, the picturesque Tobacco Warehouse in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Last year this involved 23 dancers gabbing into cellphones and being propelled horizontally along one of the warehouse’s brick walls. Today at 1:30 and 5 p.m. and Tuesday at 6 p.m., rain or shine, Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, (212) 635-3505 or dancinginthestreets.org

For more details, go to www.brooklynbridgepark.org.

“CITIZENS BY ANY OTHER NAME”
with Don Byron and Music For Six Musicians, Alejandro Escovedo, and Suzanne Vega
4 – 7 PM, gates open at 3:15 pm
Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park section of Brooklyn Bridge Park

This free late afternoon concert, outdoors on the dramatic Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront, features three great musical stars plus special guests. The virtuoso clarinetist / composer Don Byron and his Music For Six Musicians ensemble, and two brilliantly articulate singer-songwriters – Austin, Texas-based Alejandro Escovedo and New York City native Suzanne Vega – will each perform sets of original music on a theme of the Immigrant Society in today’s America.

For more details, go to www.brooklynbridgepark.org.

Navy Street (Sands St. to Hudson Ave)

The Brooklyn Greenway Initiative is a project to create a connection between numerous waterfront communities now divided by highways and transit infrastructure for waterfront access, bike trails along 14 miles of Brooklyn waterfront.

The planned pathway spans from Greenpoint to Navy Yards, Vinegar Hill, and Dumbo down to Red Hook. For joggers, bikers, and pedestrians, the route through Vinegar Hill and Dumbo would give a good view of the bridges and the waterfront:

Route in Vinegar Hill – Ideal route for Brooklyn Bridge Park and proximity to waterfront is Gold St. to John St. to the Jay St. park gateway. This could result in a segment of unique character through an historic neighborhood.

Looks like the project may finish by the time the Brooklyn Bridge Park is scheduled to finish around 2010.

{Brooklyn Greenway Initiative via The Brooklyn Record}

With features like The Battle for the Soul of Brooklyn in NY Magazine or Time Out New York’s “Battleground: Brooklyn” series, there are some sharp areas of disagreement on keeping the Brooklyn neighborhood’s sense of place rather than recreating Manhattan in Brooklyn.

An editorial viewpoint in today’s Brooklyn Daily Eagle writes that there is a school of thought that the changes in Brooklyn is an “invasion from Manhattan to destroy Brooklyn as we know it:”

An aversion to ‘Manhattanitis’ would have prevented DUMBO from happening. After all, weren’t old lofts and factory buildings in Tribeca and SoHo converted to homes? Then it shouldn’t have been done in DUMBO.

On the other hand, Forest City Ratner’s planned “Miss Brooklyn” is at least original as are the plans for Brooklyn Bridge Park, which are not replicas of anything…”if all of it can be built as designed, there will simply be nothing quite like it anywhere.” Not sure if I agree with the scope of Bruce Ratner’s proposed 22-acre Atlantic Yards development with 19 to 58 story glass and steel buildings, but I guess it’s pretty unique.
{Brooklyn Development: Not Just a Copy of Manhattan, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8/24/06}

After Hillary Clinton said that the Brooklyn Bridge Park condos were “disingenuous”, she now says she does not oppose putting the condos in the park.

The housing would provide “an ongoing revenue stream” to maintain the park, Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she had learned since her initial comments when she had concerns about the housing.

“I do not support legal action to oppose the park,” she wrote in an Aug. 16 letter to Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. President Wendy Leventer.

Clinton may have spoken too quickly when asked about building condos in the park. If the condos bring revenue to help pay for the park, she thinks it would be a benefit to everyone to have the park rather than delaying the building of the waterfront park.

{Hil flips to back park condo plan, New York Daily News, August 18, 2006}

Looks like Hillary Clinton doesn’t agree with the concept of placing a luxury condominium in a public park. The condo itself will be in Brooklyn Heights at Joralemon Street, but the park will span from Dumbo to Brooklyn Heights.

The current plan requires the 1.3-mile-long waterfront development linking DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights to be self-sustaining. Its upkeep would be paid for through maintenance fees on the private luxury housing within the project.

Last week, Clinton questioned that scheme, saying, “If parks had to be self-sustaining, would anyone have ever built a park?”

The state’s junior senator also called the plan “disingenuous,” adding, “It’s not luxury housing we need. We absolutely need affordable housing.”

Do you think Hillary’s speaking out against the condo will curtail its development?

{Hillary flips on a-park-ments, BrooklynPapers.com, August 12, 2006}
{One Brooklyn Bridge Park website}

Officials are installing lights at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in DUMBO to keep the waterfront spot open past dark.

A State Parks spokeswoman said officials will be working to install interim lighting in the park at the foot of Main St. in the coming weeks and hope to have the lights up and working by about midSeptember.

However, Parks spokeswoman Wendy Gibson said it is too soon to know how late the park’s hours will be extended – or when the later hours will begin. It also was unclear whether it will be seven days a week or just weekends.

{DUMBO park lightens up, NY Post}