Pier 6: Willowtown’s Ruin?

By on July 2, 2010 10:42 am in Brooklyn Heights

There’s no doubt that Brooklyn Bridge Park is super-fantastic.  It’s a great place to spend the day or twilight  -as last night’s Whitman fest proved. However this missive arrived in the BHB Inbox this morning and it deserves to be discussed here:

Dude, Where’s My Neighborhood?
Why BBP has begun to destroy Brooklyn Heights.
No longer is BH a quiet area for residents seeking refuge from the bustle of the city and other densely populated parts of Brooklyn.
The streets are clogged with more people and cars at all hours of the day and night.
Weekends? A longtime resident’s nightmare.
The opening of Pier 6 has literally transformed Willowtown from being a sleepy nook tucked away in unknown corner of Brooklyn Heights.
Joralemon Street has become a major thoroughfare for people and cars to get to the new “crown jewel” of the City’s parks.
There’s more garbage on the streets. There’s more noise on the streets. There’s more crime on the streets.
Stories of downspouts being stolen in the middle of the night. Groups of bandana wearing youths patrolling the streets late at night. My girlfriend being followed by a mentally disturbed individual (from a playground) as she parked her car, only to return to a car with slashed tires.
All we see are more tickets and tickets. More parking tickets, more park police giving people tickets.
Where did my neighborhood go?
Where did the safety go?
Where did the peace and quiet go?
Judging by the sheer number of moving trucks loaded resident’s belongings and driving them away this month, it’s sad to see this neighborhood also packing it in and discarding its local residents, ambiance and allure.
It was nice knowing you Willowtown, you may be almost gone, but you will not be forgotten.

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  • epc

    I don’t recall the details anymore, but the gist was: there was no money to bridge over the BQE to the park. One could argue that there was indeed money, just focused on other aspects of the park like child-searing domes, but the crux is that there never was a serious plan to bridge to the park from the Promenade.

    The Squibb hill access has the advantage, if any, of only needing to bridge over Furman Street. I vaguely recall that beyond money there were various design & security issues with bridging over the BQE.

    At one point there was discussion about creating tunnels from the Clark Street and Montague Street stations down towards Furman but I don’t think either was seriously pursued.

  • T.K. Small

    A tunnel entrance way is a great idea and, starting with the sinkhole should save money on construction expense!

    On a serious note, nabeguy mentioned the BQE reconstruction plans. Somehow I think that the plans which included significant eminent domain taking are not really dead. Stay tuned.

  • nabeguy

    I completely concur, T.K. When the engineer at that meeting said that the speed compliance proposals that included the eminent domain aspects met 3 of the 4 engineering criteria for a successful project (he did say “it was like finding the Holy Grail, right?), but “failed” on the environmental impact, I immediately thought to myself “TBC”.
    As for the Montague Street access point, I do recall some fanciful, Jules Verne-ish kind of proposals for a flying bridge over the BQE that led to a building with a spiral ramp that would make it wheel-chair accessible. At the time, it seemed to make sense, but in retrospect, it kind of has a Clark Street station staircase vibe to it.

  • T.K. Small

    The threshold to satisfy the standards of eminent domain is so low, I cannot imagine how a project like this wouldn’t be accepted/approved. I started doing a bit of research on this topic during the last presidential election when Sarah Palin couldn’t name one case that she thought the US Supreme Court had decided incorrectly. Conservatives were going crazy that she didn’t mention Kelo vs. City of New London.

  • Ursula Hahn

    If any of the posters had participated in the public planning process for Brooklyn Bridge Park or at least followed the local press over the years, they would know that Montague Street and the Clark Street subway station have been considered viable access points and that Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez obtained funds for a study to explore these and other access options. Both were included in a study conducted by Sam Schwartz’s consulting firm, again with public input. However, public street access (including the conversion of Furman Street to two-way, is not covered by the park’s construction funding but is under NYC DOT’s control and the connector from the Clark Street subway station would be under MTA control. While pedestrian access from Columbia Heights via the below-grade Squibb playground and a bridge across the BQE is part of the park plan, no funding is available for it at this time. And – from the beginning of the park’s public planning process – there was strong opposition from influential Brooklyn Heights preservationists to an overpass from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade into the park, although the Montague merchants would lick their fingers at the prospect of increased foot traffic.

    Many of you have complained about Joralemon Street, but I invite you to observe the nightly circus that Old Fulton Street between Front and Water Streets has become for the residents of Fulton Ferry Landing.

    To others who have noticed more refuse in the streets: That’s most likely the result of the switch to once weekly from twice weekly alternate-side-of-the-street parking (and street sweeping).

  • nabeguy

    Thanks for the schooling Ursula. Could you please put your ruler away now?

  • T.K. Small

    I was at the BBP planning session which occurred at Congregation Mount Sinai. It was a very noisy, chaotic and ineffective exercise. If the other sessions were similarly organized, that would explain some of the poor decisions and apparent lack of community “buy in”.

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