Developers For John Street Condos Announced

It’s on a flood plane. Sandy swamped the site. Another storm will come and wipe it out. Foolishness to the investors.

In 2001, Scientific American pointed out that a Category 5 hurricane was destined to hit New Orleans head-on one of these years, putting some streets under twenty feet of water. In the same piece, they noted that Venice was sinking. (And it still is.) Both cities suffered from the inability of local/regional and national officials to all agree on a plan to keep the water back.

http://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/publications/v.php?id=2715

Hurricane Sandy left thigh-high water marks down in DUMBO.

I think Karl’s reporting is solid; the development was part of the early plans. Is it still the right approach to building a park? I’m not sure. The whole point of a park should be to provide a respite from urban life and vertical development, not generate more of it. The structures in BBP are doing exactly that.

Karl, thank you for your terrific and accurate overview of the park’s genesis. I hope it conveys the park’s significance to those who didn’t live through the many years that led from wishful thinking to park realization. I’m forever grateful for the persistent visible and invisible leaders and supporters, and the many organizations and elected officials that stood behind them and whose work helped convert the dream into reality.
Given the MOU between the City and State of New York, reasonable people recognize that setting aside a percentage of land to produce income to finance park operations and maintenance is a small price to pay compared to the alternative (all luxury housing all the way). People must understand that a huge part of the O&M budget is needed to maintain the pier pilings. Long before the park is completed, the children’s playgrounds are packed; beach volleyball and soccer fields are in constant use far into the night; the picnic peninsula has become a favorite gathering place; children and their caregivers enjoy the pop-up pool. Thousands attend free programs organized and financed by the Conservancy with charitable contributions from the public, such as movies, music, fitness and kayaking. Hundreds run, jog and power-walk every morning and evening; Locals and visitors alike are mesmerized by the views from the Esplanade and from the Cove in the Main Street section. All this where nothing was the park came into existence!
You only have to follow the continuing construction of the High Line to appreciate what an amenity Brooklyn Bridge Park is. Over there, in the ‘Far West,” both sides of the narrow band of the High Line is already lined by high rises, which leave barely a spot open to see the Hudson. The parking lots near the southern terminus will not remain parking lots, and the last High Line section soon to be constructed will be engulfed by the mega Penn Yards development.
Governors Island is even more complicated as it has National Park and Historic District components as well as a public school. A new park is under construction. The huge real estate inventory, former military buildings, must be adapted to other non-for-profit uses, and two large development parcels are set aside to generate income to operate and maintain public amenities. The cost of ferry transportation must be very high.
I never cease to be thrilled walking the length of Brooklyn Bridge Park from the Anchorage to Atlantic Avenue and back up across the Squibb Park Bridge. All of this was a stretch of flat, abandoned land shut off from life around it and only visible from the Promenade.
Admittedly, the “circus,” which Fulton Ferry Landing has become due to the influx of throngs of visitors and tour buses, particularly on weekends, is a consequence that I for one did not foresee.