Brooklyn Bridge Park - by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

[DarrylStrawberry]

Picture is from the Brooklyn Heights Blog.

http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/14898


Also, the lights in the park are on for the first time tonight.

[Merry]

Mayor Bloomberg intensifying bid to wrest control of Brooklyn Bridge Park from state

BY Mike Mclaughlin and and Erin Durkin


City Hall wants to run Brooklyn Bridge Park and make it 'world class.'

Mayor Bloomberg is ramping up his bid to wrest control of Brooklyn Bridge Park from the state with a plan to kick in $55 million - and delay controversial plans to build luxury housing.

The city would commit $55 million right away to finish building the troubled waterfront park, which faces a $120 million funding gap and an uncertain future.

City Hall would eventually come up with the rest of the cash to finish the park, sources said. The proposal is set to be unveiled at a community meeting tonight.

"It should be a world-class waterfront park," said Deputy Mayor Bob Lieber. "Right now, there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty about the park's future, and we're looking for a way to get it back on track."

Controversial plans to build 1,200 luxury condos in the park would be put on hold for a few years, sources said.

City officials would consider scrapping the condos altogether if they could find a way to replace the fees.

Condo opponents said the plan gave them hope the housing might be called off.

"A city takeover has great potential if there's money on the table [and] a meaningful discussion of alternatives to housing," said state Sen. Daniel Squadron, who opposes the condos.

The plan depends on striking a deal with Gov. Paterson.

Parkgoers could ride their bikes, walk dogs and take in waterfront views until 1 a.m. if the city took over, in place of a dusk closing time under state rules.

City officials would look to add a skating rink or a "bubble" for winter activities.

http://www.nydailynews.com/real_esta...#ixzz0Z5oeatO5

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categor...id=31&id=32476

State Names New Chair For Piers Park Development

by Henrik Krogius (Krogius@brooklyneagle.net), published online 12-15-2009

Davidson of Heights Assumes Post Directly
The Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation (BBPDC) has announced the appointment of Brooklyn Heights resident Peter W. Davidson as chairman of its board. Davidson joined Empire State Development (ESD) as executive director in October to assume primary oversight of ESD’s statewide subsidiaries and large-scale urban development projects.

The appointment, effective immediately, appears intended to allow the state to continue its management and leadership of the park project, which has undergone striking progress in the past year. As a long-time Brooklyn resident, Davidson is described as having both a personal and a professional commitment to the success of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

“Peter Davidson’s appointment is the latest in the very visible progress occurring at Brooklyn Bridge Park,” said Governor David A. Paterson. “This park is an example of the great things that we can do when the state and the city work together, and we can all be proud that after twenty five years, there will be a world-class waterfront park in Brooklyn. I know that Peter is the best choice to lead in this effort.”

“We are delighted that Peter is stepping into the role of chairman,” said Regina Myer, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation. “In the last few months Peter has demonstrated his support and his knowledge of the project and has met with both city and state elected officials and neighborhood groups. As we move ever closer to opening the first sections of the park this winter, I know that Peter will be on hand each step of the way — as a champion of the project, as well as a problem solver and a leader.”

“We are weeks away from opening the first parts of Pier 1. I share the excitement and gratification of all involved, and offer my congratulations in advance of this significant milestone,” Davidson said. “Even so, I am well aware of the decades-long effort that has brought us to this moment as well as the work that is yet to be done. I look forward to working with our partners in city government to see this extraordinary park fully realized in the next few years.”

Last week, at a Cobble Hill meeting, city Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said the city would commit $55 million in park construction funds, predicated on the city taking the major role in the park’s development and governance.

[Merry]

Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1 Goes Green

December 16, 2009, by Joey


[Click to expand]

Live from a Lower Manhattan rooftop, Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1! Those six acres of lush lawns may be ringed with controversy—from the fate of the park's luxury housing to the lackluster grand entrance—but come some undetermined date possibly in January 2010, will the frosty picnickers really care?


[Click to expand]

Park Design Images [Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy]
Brooklyn Bridge Park [Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation]
Brooklyn Bridge Park coverage [Curbed]

http://curbed.com/archives/2009/12/1...green.php#more

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.nydailynews.com/real_esta...tral_park.html

Brooklyn Bridge Park: Is it the new Central Park?
BY JASON SHEFTELL
DAILY NEWS REAL ESTATE CORRESPONDENT

Friday, December 18th 2009, 4:00 AM

“This park is possibly the most important public space in the last century anywhere in the country,” says NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “It fills a huge void for downtown Brooklyn and five local neighborhoods. Sitting on the New York Harbor, looking right at the lower Manhattan skyline, there might not be a more spectacular place for a new park in the world.”

Shockingly, on a former Port Authority pier, a man-made hill rises more than 28 feet, separating two large lawns. One faces the Brooklyn Bridge, and one faces 900 acres of space in the New York Harbor.

Like something out of a movie set, there is a stone staircase, doubling as a seating area, leading up to a stage of granite staring right at the Manhattan skyline. Music superstars, according to Benepe, will fight to shoot the first videos there.

Below that to the left, and you can’t see it till you reach the top of the hill, there are hundreds of wooden piles, paying homage to 150 years of maritime history and helping preserve the marine life that lives around them.

In the 10 years since the city and state began working with the public to transform the former Port Authority-owned
industrial site under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the site has remained behind a chain-link fence. During that time, Brooklyn-based landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates has been busy turning the former parking lots, warehouses and piers into green space.

No landscape architects since Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who created Central and Prospect Parks, have shaped more New York greenery than Van Valkenburgh’s. They have designed Teardrop Park in Battery Park City, redone the north end of Union Square and designed a number of piers in Hudson River Park. They are the closest things to rock stars in the world of landscape architecture, totally redefining the profession by dramatically transforming
urban land across the world.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park design pushes people to the waterfront, letting them touch the water or launch kayaks in four places. Creating hills, lawns and curving pathways that rise and descend like a game of Chutes and Ladders, the firm uses every step up or down to enhance the views. As a visitor’s perspective shifts, the view of the city changes with it.

Van Valkenburgh, a teacher at Harvard for 27 years, has been building parks all his life. When he was a child, he wanted to change the direction of a stream. He built a dam to do it. He moved his home to Brooklyn Heights and his office to Court St. from Union Square when the Brooklyn Bridge Park project got into full swing. Like an excited kid, he gets down on the lawn facing the harbor to show how the horizon shifts based on whether you’re sitting or standing, or on whether you’re a child or an adult.

“This is the project of a lifetime,” he says. “When you’re offered sites like this, it’s hard to believe it’s happening. Every time we build a new park, we want it to be the best one in the world. The act of living in the city is more complete when your daily life is the blending of city and
urban landscape together.”

“Landscape architecture should make places more powerful,” he says. “We hope people rethink how to use public spaces after using this park.”
A. Paul Seck manages the project for the firm. He built a deck in his Crown Heights backyard out of wood he plucked from Dumpsters in front of people’s houses. To understand the scope of the site, he built a 70-foot model of the park that sits in a warehouse on the grounds. It’s safe to say there is no model in the world of landscape architecture like it.

“I have no idea what one does after a project of this scale,” he says. “I want to watch people’s faces as they walk that first hill and the city rises with them.”


A recycled park?
In a first for 21st-century park engineering, a “Water Garden” with five pools and small bridges covers a stormwater-reclamation system with underground pipes and storage tanks that redistribute 80% of the park’s irrigation needs. There is no park in the world this size that has incorporates that feature into its design.

Walking or sitting in this park, you’ll be constantly touching New York City history. Granite slabs from the reconstruction of the Willis Ave. Bridge and the Roosevelt Island Bridge, and earth from the East Side Access Project (the digging of tunnels for the Long Island Rail Road) have all been incorporated into the design.

Everything must be big
“Every city park in the world near water — London, Paris, even Hudson River Park — uses dainty, old-fashioned light poles,” says Urbanksi. “No way could we do that here. There is nothing precious about this site. If we had used 15- or 18-foot light poles, they would look miniature and not have near the muscle to stand next to a century-old stone bridge. Everything in this park had to be big.”

Tall, thin and industrial, the light poles on Pier 1A give the park character. While some critics might find the giant poles perplexing, they give the site less of a fairy-tale feel. The focus becomes less on the lights than on the bridge, the water and the skyline. Even the benches appear to have heft and bulk, countering the curves of the park as it weaves from pier to pier.


The power of the harbor
Make no mistake: This is a tough site to build anything on. It gets very cold on the water in the winter. The site is narrow. Ten years ago, it was flat. The BQE stands 40 feet above, creating noise and smog.

“You could not make a better theatrical backdrop to this landscape,” says Urbanski. “That said, transforming a former freight terminal into a park meant it had to be violently changed without being totally destroyed, which would have been way too expensive. It was very important for us to do something authentically Brooklyn here.”

How do you do that? You leave a lot of what’s already there. It meant not ignoring the surrounding elements like the highway, ensure the preservation of those piers and decrease the noise and cold, using walls and hills, to make the park usable year-round. It meant walkways wider than those in any other local park.

“This site is about the tyranny of the urban condition,” Urbanski says. “The East River, the BQE, the bridge, the harbor, the skyline. These are gigantic pieces of the city and Brooklyn. We had to make a park that belongs in that group. We did nothing that would take away from the
industrial, in-your-face experience of being on the edge of massive piers with nothing between you and the water but a metal rail.”

To counter seasonal weather shifts, Van Valkenburgh’s firm created microclimates, areas where it’s warmer (think sunlight without wind) or cooler (think shade in the summer), throughout the park. Even on a 28-degree day, with the sun shining, it felt warm. In some places, though, around the edge of the waterfront with 30-foot-wide paths for pedestrians, they left it cold.

“In the winter it will feel like being out there on a ferryboat on the ocean,” says Van Valkenburgh. “Some people will want to feel the power of the harbor in the off-season.”

To reduce the sound from the BQE, the landscape architects worked with sound engineers to build hills at the east end of the park. Called the Uplands, these hills rise 30 feet, blocking noise from the constant expressway traffic that travels the length of the park. They also continue the curving paths that start at the Old Fulton St. entrance, connecting all six piers with the series of landscaped hills that act as grass- and tree-filled bleachers, where park visitors can read, sleep or just gaze at the park and city below.


Who’s paying for this?
Responsibility for funding the project falls to Regina Myer. President of the city- and state-funded Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp., Myer — a former Brooklyn Planning Director during the borough’s greatest growth period, from 1996 to 2004 — is charged with getting this park funded and built.

Working with Parks Commissioner Benepe, she’ll put a program in place under which no public expense funds will go the maintenance of the park. Real-estate development on the site will fund all operations. A contribution of $3 million annually from RAL, developer of One Brooklyn Bridge Park, the first condominium on the site, allows for the opening of the first phase. Taxes from that development, and possibly others, will be paid to the park specifically rather than to general city funds.

In total, the park construction will cost the city and state $350 million. More than $223 million has already been committed. Money is in place to complete Pier 1; the Atlantic Ave. entrance, which includes acres of state-of-the-art playgrounds space; and Pier 5, which will house a picnic pavilion and Astroturf soccer fields lit at night. Piers housing a nature reserve, beach, basketball and sports courts and rolling meadows are not currently funded.

The city recently proposed $55 million for further work on the park. Selling the potential real-estate development sites will help financially as well, but the poor economy has hurt the value of land for future condominiums and the 200-room hotel.

Myer, a Park Slope resident who people close to the project call a “force of nature,” is committed to completing the park.

“My job is to get people together and keep them focused on getting this thing done,” she says. “Why are we opening in winter? This park is a long time in the making. Twenty years, for some Brooklyn Heights residents. We want them to experience it right away. They waited enough.”

Playgrounds and poetry
The main community resistance plaguing early park planning was how much of the park should be used for active and passive recreation. Active means playing fields, courts and playgrounds. Passive means walkways, lawns, benches and places to sit and do nothing. The Atlantic Ave. entryway and Pier 6, some of which is set to open in April, demonstrates the issues at the core of this battle.

At the Atlantic Ave. entrance to the park is a world-class playground designed by Urbanski with help from consultants from the Natural Learning Initiative at North Carolina State University. Swing Valley is a maze-like oval of tire swings, toddler swings and old-fashioned swings leading to the water. It’s covered in a rubbery, almost psychadelic recycled, light-blue, soft surface. Nearby, a mountain of boulders with three slides provides a viewing area for parents. A water play area will jet sprays of water into the air.

At the end of Pier 6, in an area not yet funded, Van Valkenburgh designed an area that could be the equivalent of the landscape architect going foul line to foul line, dunking a basketball. It’s poetry in motion. Meadows where parkgoers fly kites or picnic rise and fall amid marshes where birds and other wildlife will nest and spread seeds naturally.

“Landscape architecture is responsible, environmental and full of active park programming,” says Van Valkenburgh. “But it’s also the kind of rich experiences you bring into people’s lives. We tried to do that where we could.”

[DarrylStrawberry]

they were installing park benches today. does anyone know the specific date they're going to open Pier 1?

[Merry]

Empire-Fulton Ferry Park To Close Jan. 1

Will Soon Become Part Of Brooklyn Bridge Park

by Raanan Geberer

FULTON FERRY -- Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, the small state waterfront park whose ownership was recently transferred from the state Parks Department to the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, will temporarily close as of Jan. 1, 2010.

When it reopens in spring 2011, it will be part of the expanding Brooklyn Bridge Park and will contain many improvements.

The park, established in 1979 on land that was donated by Con Edison, includes the 19th century Empire Stores and the equally venerable Tobacco Warehouse, both of them former industrial warehouses that time has made obsolete.

Theatrical performances and other events occasionally take place in the Tobacco Warehouse, whose roof has been destroyed, during the summer.

The Empire Stores currently serve as the park’s administrative headquarters, and various uses have been proposed for them over the years.

The park also is known for its summer “Movies With a View” series, which this year will be held in the new Pier 1 portion of Brooklyn Bridge Park; for its views of the Manhattan skyline; and for its summer sculpture shows.
New features of the park will include:

• Jane’s Carousel, a gift of Jane and David Walentas. The elaborate, restored 1922 carousel once ran in an amusement park in Youngstown, Ohio, and was bought by the Walentases at an auction there during the 1980s. It is slated to be housed in a beautiful pavilion designed by Pritzker-Prize winning architect Jean Nouvel, making the carousel available for use in all seasons. Currently, the carousel is in a temporary location in DUMBO.

• Stormwater retention tanks to irrigate the park’s natural features.

• Park furnishings including railings, benches, picnic tables and bike racks.

• Lighting so that the park will be open after dark for the first time since its opening in 1979.

• Regrading the park to improve drainage.

The adjacent city-owned portion of Brooklyn Bridge Park, including the DUMBO playground, is scheduled to remain open during the renovation. The Pier 1 portion of the park is expected to open by the summer, and the Pier 6 portion at Atlantic Avenue is set to open before that.

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categor...id=31&id=32730

[BrooklynRider]

Pier One (Phase I) of the park was lit last night.

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://oxblue.com/pro/open/RAL/OneBrooklynBridgePark

Webcam showing construction of Pier #6 playground.

[DarrylStrawberry]

One thing that struck me during a tour of the park (both Pier 1 and Pier 6) was that the pathways were much wider than I expected. The guide explained that there were regulations and design parameters mandating that they be wide enough for emergency vehicles. If you look at the vehicles parked alongside the swing area, you can see that the pathway is approximately 20 feet wide.

[Stroika]

This sounds great. I've always wanted to eat in a place theoretically similar to River Cafe, but without paying $200 per plate (and all of it subsidized by the $1 (?) lease they get from the city).
New waterfront restaurant coming to Brooklyn

City puts call out for eatery in Brooklyn Bridge Park

By Stephen Witt
Courier-Life
Last Updated: 9:19 PM, January 13, 2010

Move over, River Cafe, there’s a new waterfront eatery with spectacular views coming to the borough.
The city’s Parks Department is seeking a restaurateur to operate an eatery overlooking the New York Harbor on Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6, this paper has learned.
The pier is located on the southern edge of the waterfront Park off Atlantic Avenue with breathtaking views of both lower Manhattan and New York Harbor.
“Parks recently sent a notice to (Community Board 2) that we are intending to issue an RFP (Request for Proposals) for a restaurant at Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park,” said Parks Department spokesperson Phil Abramson.
“The building is currently in construction and there is a plan for additional outdoor seating. The RFP is currently being developed but has not been finalized at this time,” he added.


The fact that the city is taking the lead in the RFP also is interesting because the state is the lead agency over the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation (BBPDC), which is charged with building the 85-acre waterfront park.
However, the city and state have been in negotiations for several months to have the city take over the project.
BBPDC spokesperson Elizabeth Mitchell said the city will issue the RFP because Pier 6 is owned by the city and therefore has license to build a park on it and manage the construction and operations procurement process through its Franchise Concession Review Committee (FCRC).
“We are working together with the city on an RFP regarding the Pier 6 concession and expect to officially issue the RFP in the next few months,” she said.
While details of the restaurant specifications are not available yet, it would probably be similar to the River Cafe, 1 Water Street at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge in DUMBO.
“This is the first we heard of it and it will be interesting to find out more about it,” said River Cafe General Manager Scott Stamford.
switt@cnglocal.com


http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/b...iyb5qW7VyaDJfJ

[Merry]

Trolley trash! Workers tear up history near Brooklyn Bridge Park

By Stephen Brown and Will Yakowicz

Fulton Ferry Landing preservationists are fuming that construction workers trashed a piece of history at the entrance to Brooklyn Bridge Park — set to open this month — that could have helped create a new trolley service.

Late last year, workers at the end of Old Fulton Street discovered the old rails dating back to the 1920s. But after consulting with archaeologists and city landmarks officials, they ripped up the tracks and threw them in the trash.

“No one wants to recognize that this was a transportation hub,” said Richard Mauro, who’s lived in the area for 40 years. “No matter how you look at it the trolley tracks are part of the street’s history. They should not have been removed.”

The tracks, which were covered by asphalt for decades, are a relic of a trolley service on Old Fulton Street that ran from the late 1800s to the 1930s. They were removed from the road as part of a larger sewer and water main reconstruction project throughout DUMBO.

City officials downplayed the tracks’ significance.

“They are not contributing features to the character of the Fulton Ferry historic district,” said Landmarks spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon.

De Bourbon added that DUMBO is noted for train tracks, not trolley tracks.

And, besides, Fulton Ferry Landing’s distinguishing characteristic was the ferry landing, not the old-school mode of transportation that rumbled away from it.

Still, some insist that the old rails are even more valuable because they can be used to reinstate trolley service, an unrealized dream of transit advocates for years.

“When these people say the tracks are all finished and garbage, they don’t know what they are talking about,” said Bob Diamond, a Brooklyn legend ever since he discovered a long-abandoned trolley tunnel under Atlantic Avenue almost 30 years ago.

“The tracks must still have at least 25 years of use in them,” he said. “The asphalt is a pretty good preservative. The ones on Old Fulton Street being removed could be used to restore trolley service in Downtown Brooklyn.”

Recent talk of the elimination of the B25 bus line resurrected concerns of a lack of public transportation to bring people to the highly anticipated new park along the Brooklyn Heights waterfront. The bus line was saved, but the concern is still there.

Many have said that a trolley — that classic symbol of the borough itself — would be a convenient and stylish attraction that would deliver visitors from downtown to the hard-to-get-to park.

But an architect supervising construction in the area said the tracks in question were not part of a larger infrastructure that could have been of use for a new trolley.

“The tracks were just one section of disassociated tracks. They were removed and there hasn’t been evidence of any more,” said Alyssa Loorya, a head archeologist who surveyed the area for the city.

Then again, a Brooklyn Paper reporter visited the historic street multiple times and saw different tracks being removed over a span of a couple days. A construction worker who was cutting and ripping out the tracks said, “The tracks are all over the place. We have been removing big sections all day.”

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories...ley_trash.html

[BrooklynRider]

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[Stroika]

Eek! Looks like a prison with those lights.

Or possibly the parking lot of a Wal-Mart or Cowboys Stadium...

[DarrylStrawberry]

I agree about the lights. I wish they were less industrial looking.

The hill on the pier looks much smaller in that shot than it does in person.