A HISTORY OF BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK
Aerial view of Brooklyn Bridge Park site, ca. 1980.
© MICHAEL VAN VALKENBURGH ASSOCIATES, INC.
Aerial view of future Brooklyn Bridge Park, ca. 1980.
© MICHAEL VAN VALKENBURGH ASSOCIATES, INC.
NANCY WEBSTER + DAVID SHIRLEY
A HISTORY OF BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK
HOW A COMMUNITY RECLAIMED AND TRANSFORMED NEW YORK CITY’S WATERFRONT
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS | NEW YORK
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2016 Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-54294-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Webster, Nancy, 1960– author. | Shirley, David, 1955– author.
Title: A history of Brooklyn Bridge Park : how a community reclaimed and transformed New York City’s waterfront / Nancy Webster and David Shirley.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016009008 (print) | LCCN 2016019804 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231171229 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231542944 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Brooklyn Bridge Park (New York, N.Y.)—History. | Parks—New York (State)—New York—History.
Classification: LCC F129.B7 W24 2016 (print) | LCC F129.B7 (ebook) | DDC 974.7—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009008
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at [email protected].
COVER AND BOOK DESIGN: VIN DANG
COVER PHOTO: JORGE QUINTEROS © STOCKSY
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION THE EVOLUTION OF THE WATERFRONT
ONE WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE PIERS?
TWO FIGHTING BACK
THREE THE COALITION
FOUR THE “13 GUIDING PRINCIPLES”
FIVE BANGING THEIR CUPS ON THE HIGH CHAIR
SIX CHANGING OF THE GUARD
SEVEN TEARING DOWN THE BARBED WIRE
EIGHT THE PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD
NINE A PARK AT LAST
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WE WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS OUR THANKS to the following individuals whose memories, advice, and perseverance were essential to completing this history of Brooklyn Bridge Park.
First, thank you to Otis Pearsall and Scott Hand, whose monograph on the early 1980s provided such a valuable stepping off point for our research of the Brooklyn Bridge Park movement.
Thank you to the staff members of the Brooklyn Collection at the Brooklyn Public Library and the Othmer Library at the Brooklyn Historical Society (particularly Deborah Schwartz, president of the Brooklyn Historical Society) for providing us with access to their extensive archives of photographs, reports, institutional records, personal correspondence, and media articles on the history of the west Brooklyn waterfront.
Our interview subjects provided the substance of this narrative and allowed the history of the social movement that gave birth to the park to come alive on the page. As we hope to have successfully demonstrated, many hundreds of people made meaningful contributions to the park. We wish there had been the time and resources to interview more of them.
Thank you to JillEllyn Riley, Nina Collins, Howard Morhaim, and Johnny Temple, all literary sages, who steered us from proposal to publisher. And thank you to Philip Leventhal at Columbia University Press who took the book in hand, shaped it, and made it better.
Marianna Koval, Tensie Whelan, and Regina Myer provided particular assistance in helping us identify key dates, players, and events in the life of the park.
This book could not have been written without the support of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, whose board and staff supported the extensive research effort into the origins of the park. A particular thank you goes to former board chairwoman Nancy Bowe and current chairman Mark Baker, who believe deeply and passionately in Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Conservancy and have devoted untold hours to help create this special park on the Brooklyn waterfront.
Finally, every project of worth and import has an overseer who pushes it forward and provides encouragement—as well as the occasional upbraid—to ensure that deadlines are met and quality remains high. We owe our deepest gratitude to Kara Gilmour for her luminous spirit, insight, patience, and steady hand. She got us here.
INTRODUCTION
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WATERFRONT
Flow on, river! Flow with the flood-tide and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edged waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me,
Or the men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! Stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
WALT WHITMAN, “CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY”
ON A RAINY MONDAY MORNING in late March 2010, a large and illustrious group of New Yorkers crowded together on a granite staircase on a landscaped hillside above the west Brooklyn shoreline, with the spectacular views of New York Harbor, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the lower Manhattan skyline sprawling out beneath them. The occasion for the gathering was the highly anticipated ribbon cutting for Pier 1, the first official section of Brooklyn Bridge Park to be opened to the public. The nine-acre site featured vast green lawns, a playground, and a spacious promenade along the river. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York governor David Paterson were on hand to voice their appreciation of the achievement, along with an impressive collection of state legislators, city officials, and community leaders and a soggy but enthusiastic group of teenage twirlers from nearby Fort Hamilton High School.
In the six years since the public celebration at Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park has expanded to include 1.3 miles and close to 85 acres of public space on and adjacent to Piers 1–6, along with the Fulton Ferry Landing area just north of the piers between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. In addition to the green lawns and playground on Pier 1, the park now includes numerous athletic fields and recreational facilities, a sandy beach for strolling and nonmotorized boating, a row of “sound-attenuating” hills that insulate the park grounds from the noise of the roadways and busy neighborhoods above it, and a continuous “greenway” along the waterfront. Since its opening in 2010, the park has attracted millions of visitors, with thousands of people arriving each day to enjoy the beauty of the landscape and the scenic views of the East River and the lower Manhattan skyline; to use the park’s playgrounds and recreational facilities; and to participate in the hundreds of volunteer programs and cultural, educational, and recreational events conducted at the park each year.
ALTHOUGH BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK STANDS as the crown jewel of the East River waterfront and one of New York City’s most popular destinations for both tourists and local residents, it almost never came to be. The realization of the park was the result of a long and challenging process for the committed group of citizens who first envisioned a public space along the west Brooklyn shoreline. The park represents the culmination of a three-decade-long campaign on the part of local residents and community leaders to restore the once-bustling Brooklyn waterfront to public access and control.
The campaign to create a park on the piers began in the ear
ly 1980s, when employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (the independent public agency that owned the vast majority of the property) contacted the leaders of the neighborhood associations that represented the communities adjacent to the waterfront regarding the agency’s intentions to dispose of Piers 1–6 on the Brooklyn shoreline of the East River. Changes in the global-shipping industry had recently resulted in the increasing disuse of the property, and state and local political leaders and public authorities, eager to revitalize the city’s economy following the recession of the previous decade, viewed the development of the once-thriving but by then mostly abandoned piers as a potential source of revenue and job creation. The Brooklyn community leaders’ initial concerns centered on the potential impact of the proposed disposition of the piers on the neighborhoods they represented. Many local residents were particularly worried that high-rise condominiums and other commercial developments would disturb the extraordinary views of the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Manhattan skyline that had long been a hallmark of Brooklyn Heights, an affluent neighborhood situated on a high bluff above the East River.
In 1985, the Port Authority joined with the administration of New York City mayor Edward Koch to announce the public authorities’ intention to lease the waterfront property for commercial development, confirming the worst fears of a growing number of local residents and inspiring community leaders to replace their initial emphasis on view protection and neighborhood preservation with a proposal for the creation of a public park along the waterfront. What began as a strategic decision (providing local residents with a constructive proposal around which they could rally, rather than a list of concerns and complaints) soon became an abiding passion for a growing number of local residents. The community’s newfound commitment to a waterfront park empowered the members of Brooklyn’s Community Board 2 to block the public authorities’ plans for the commercial development of the piers and inspired the members of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition (an outgrowth of the Piers Committee of the Brooklyn Heights Association [BHA]) to pursue a decade-long campaign to mobilize public support for a park along the piers; enlist the endorsement and financial commitment of local, city, and state officials to the park concept; and develop the guiding principles for the park’s design, construction, and ongoing maintenance.
In the early years of the park movement, the general idea of a public space along the piers served as a unifying vision for the residents of the neighborhoods that shared the waterfront and the growing number of local, city, and state officials who lent their support to the project. Disagreements arose, however, as guidelines and plans for the park actually began to take shape in the late 1980s and early 1990s. How were the construction and maintenance of the park to be funded? Which routes should visitors from outside the adjacent neighborhoods use to gain access to the waterfront? Should the park property be devoted to passive or active recreational use? Should portions of the piers be retained for maritime and industrial use? What types of residential or commercial structures, if any, should be included in the park’s design? Who should ultimately be in charge of the planning, construction, and maintenance of the park?
Throughout most of the 1990s, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition represented the organizing force behind the park movement and the center for discussion and debate about the major issues involved in the realization of a park along the Brooklyn piers. During this period, the organization’s reputation and its ability to work with city government and other stakeholders was marked by both achievement and conflict, and the competing interests of local residents, public authorities, and state and municipal governments at times resulted in controversy, stalled negotiations, and public dissent. Although a number of the Coalition’s early leaders and active members left the movement over the years, the organization continued to endure and to maintain its original focus on the realization of the park. Near the end of the decade, following the creation of a pubic entity in charge of the planning of the park, the Coalition renewed its relevance in the park movement by calling for an expansion of the park to include the area between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, north of the piers, and by advocating for a vital role for the park in the recreational, educational, and cultural life of the city through an ambitious public-programming component.
Since formal planning for the park began in 1998, park advocates successfully overcame a variety of setbacks and hurdles: the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001; the global financial crisis; the destructive flooding and punishing winds of Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012; confusions and delays resulting from the competitive leadership of state and city governments; and the ongoing public controversy about the inclusion of residential housing in the park’s design. Today Brooklyn Bridge Park is widely recognized as a world-class waterfront park and a model of financially sustainable and environmentally responsible urban-park development. The park rivals its celebrated counterparts—Central Park and Prospect Park—in its scale, beauty, and popularity, and it ranks as one of the great physical accomplishments in the city’s proud history.
In the pages that follow, we describe the conflicts, the compromises, and the achievements that resulted in the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park. The story of Brooklyn Bridge Park provides insight into the inner workings of city and state planning and the various commercial, political, and community interests that come into play in pursuit of a common goal. The park’s history recounts the surprising story of the remarkable things that can happen when a group of concerned citizens rally their community around a common cause and are prepared to stay the course until their vision is realized, even in the face of resistance and controversy. Finally, the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park reflects the changing nature—understood both literally and metaphorically—of New York City since the mid-1980s. The Brooklyn piers, which had by the 1970s fallen into disrepair and disuse, have now been transformed into a stunning park widely celebrated for its innovative and award-winning design. Along with the recently constructed High Line in Manhattan, Brooklyn Bridge Park stands as a majestic symbol of the gradual rehabilitation and rejuvenation of New York City’s waterfront and the cooperative efforts of the city’s residents and leaders to transform once-forgotten industrial spaces into beautiful, environmentally sustainable postindustrial parks.
AS THIS BRIEF SUMMARY of the park’s history suggests, a wide variety of individuals and institutions have contributed over the years to the realization of Brooklyn Bridge Park. The park in its present form would not exist without the public authorities who released the property for conversion to a park; the community leaders who advocated year after year and built public support for the park; the journalists who openly promoted the park concept; the borough, city, and state officials who agreed on the guidelines for the park’s development and provided the funding for its construction; the architects and urban planners who designed the park; and the public entity in charge of its construction and maintenance.
While fully recognizing the important contributions of all the individuals and institutions involved in the park’s realization, this book focuses primarily on the experiences and contributions of the local residents of Brooklyn. Behind the activities and contributions of all these groups at every stage of the park’s evolution, the citizens of Brooklyn’s residential communities immediately adjacent to the waterfront continued to believe in and campaign for the park. More than any other group, the residents of Brooklyn provided the vision, the enthusiasm, and the outspoken commitment that ensured the eventual realization of the park.
At the center of the story of the local park movement is the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition. For the past three decades, the Coalition (known today as the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy) has played a leading role in representing the aspirations of the people of Brooklyn for a public park along the piers—from the early negotiations between the Waterfront Subcommittee of the Brooklyn Heights Association (the Coalition’s earliest incarnation) and the Port Authority
over the appropriate use of the waterfront property to the open conflicts between the Coalition and the public authorities over the commercial development of the piers to the role currently played by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy in providing programmed activities for and promoting the use of the park.
In telling the story of the activities, controversies, and achievements described in the book, we have relied heavily on the personal testimonies of the people who were most closely involved in the park’s realization. Research for the book included in-depth interviews with most of the key persons involved in the park movement, including leaders of the public entities in charge of the waterfront property; elected officials and their staff members who were instrumental in achieving public and financial support for the park; the architects and urban designers who gave visual form to the park concept; and the brownstone Brooklyn community leaders and other neighborhood residents who spearheaded the park movement over the course of three decades. Each of the major events described in the book (from the initial resistance to the commercial development of the Brooklyn piers to the conflicts and compromises between city and state government to the design and construction of the park) has been brought to life through the perspectives and observations of those individuals who were involved in the process. Consistent with the book’s focus on the aspirations, frustrations, and achievements of the local community, the majority of these interviews were conducted with the residents of Brooklyn themselves. It is through their voices—and the voices of the public authorities, elected officials, and designers with whom they debated, compromised, and cooperated over the course of thirty years—that the story of Brooklyn Bridge Park will be told.
“Nobody was viewing the site the way we were,” recalls early Coalition leader Anthony Manheim regarding the Brooklyn community’s original vision of a majestic waterfront park. “We saw the potential for something grand, whereas we were being offered something small and uninspiring by the Port Authority. We saw this as a tremendous planning opportunity to create an enormous public benefit in the center of the city and to take advantage of an opportunity that would never present itself again.”1
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