Our pals at Brooklyn Papers have uncovered the mystery of the Brooklyn Bridge footpath sign maker, it's nabe resident Roslyn Beck:
Brooklyn Papers: Know Your Sign: The mystery of the surreptitious sign-maker has been solved!
Okay, so it’s not exactly the Bermuda Triangle enigma, but for years, many Brooklyn Heights residents have wondered about the unknown person who had been secretly hanging hand-painted wooden signs in Cadman Plaza Park to guide visitors to the famed, but impossible-to-find, Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian pathway.
And now, at long last, The Brooklyn Paper has found out who she is: Roslyn Beck.
We’d like to say we discovered Beck through diligent, boot-leather reporting. But in reality, she was generous enough to write us a letter — a letter! — after we mentioned her then-anonymous handiwork in an article last month.
That story was about a plan to install 110 signs throughout Downtown that will lead tourists to many attractions, including the footpath. The signs, to be installed by the Metrotech BID, will replace the current hodgepodge of dirt- and graffiti-covered civic placards that are hard to find and nearly impossible to read.
That’s in contrast to Beck’s, whose white wood, black-lettered signs remain mostly clean and readable.
She hangs them by herself, sneaking into the park after dark to help hapless tourists who get off the High Street subway and promptly get lost.
In so doing, Beck is flouting Parks Department regulations, not to mention human nature’s tendency toward apathy.
“What’s so depressing is the Parks Department regularly removes the signs,” said Beck, picking at a sticker someone had stuck on a sign at the Cadman Plaza West entrance to the park.
Photo: The Brooklyn Paper / Dana Rubinstein
