After seven years, it seems that Brooklyn judges are ready to move their cars out of Columbus Park:
NY Daily News: Judges Put Break on Park: Brooklyn judges are about to fulfill at least part of a promise made seven years ago.
After a series of articles in the Daily News, Brooklyn judges recently agreed to stop parking on a stone walkway next to Borough Hall, but will keep a parking lot in Columbus Park.
"This is a start in the right direction," said Judy Stanton of the Brooklyn Heights Association. "The park is not an acceptable place for parking, no matter whose cars they are."
In 1999, then-Administrative Judge Michael Pesce said judges would remove their cars from at least the walkway once a new courthouse garage at 330 Jay St. was completed.
But even when the 80-spot garage opened last year, judges' cars continued to hog the park.
Community activists were outraged by the judges' broken promise, particularly after the Daily News found 152 on-street parking spots in downtown Brooklyn reserved for the borough's 150 state judges.
Officials for the court and the Parks Department said judges will give the walkway back to the park once a new entrance to the parking lot on the eastern side of Columbus Park can be constructed in warmer weather this spring.
"It's good news," Robert Perris, district manager of Community Board 2, said of the move to give the walkway back to pedestrians.
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