In an article titled “In Brooklyn Bridge Park Conflict, Neighbors See Trouble. Players See Intolerance,” the Times‘ Sarah Maslin Nir reports from our neighborhood and Brooklyn Bridge Park, talking to park users and neighborhood representatives about the issues that have arisen in recent weeks.
“Sometimes I try and avoid going on Joralemon,” said Aaliyah Johnson, 17, who is black and travels from Flatbush to play basketball. “It’s like they look at you, move their kids over like you’re going to do something, and clutch on to their purse. Your doing that — it just makes us not feel welcome. We just came here to play basketball.”
“The park planners have not done a good job at finding ways for people to get into the park and out of the park,” [Peter] Bray said.
Nir also reports that Brooklyn Bridge Park has received requests to replace the basketball courts with tennis courts, something that park president Regina Myer has ruled out.
“…getting rid of some of the most popular basketball courts in the city is decidedly not the solution,” she added, “and would fly in the face of everything this park stands for.”
Read the full story in the New York Times.
Update: The article got the attention of MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who tweeted it to his more than a half million followers, giving rise to a whole other comment section on this topic (and where I took the chance to shamelessly plug BHB).
This makes me see red https://t.co/xLbCk6WC7J
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 20, 2016
