At Mayor de Blasio’s Town Hall at St. Francis College this (Wednesday) evening, he announced that $6 million has been appropriated to renovate the northern end of Cadman Plaza Park, which he said he was surprised to learn had not been touched, apart from routine maintenance, since the late 1950s. Among the improvements will be water fountains.
A local resident complained of the noise on Saturdays from permitted work on the former site of the Brooklyn Heights branch library, now to become a high rise residential and commercial tower with a new library in its ground floor and basement. The Mayor called on a representative of the City’s Buildings Department, who announced that the permit for Saturday work is ending immediately.
Asked by local resident Toba Potosky about the prospects for the BQX or “Brooklyn-Queens Connector,” the proposed streetcar line connecting Sunset Park, Brooklyn to Astoria, Queens, mostly along or near the waterfront but with a likely detour around Brooklyn Heights and through Downtown Brooklyn, the Mayor said he is enthusiastic about the project, but said it was not likely to begin to be built before 2020.
In response to another question from a local resident about “materials” for the new library, the Mayor noted that much material was now available on line, and that libraries are improving their facilities to allow access by the public to these on line resources. City Council Member Stephen Levin, who acted as moderator for the event, added that the new Brooklyn Heights branch library will have more shelf space for books than the old library, and that “we are not giving up on the book.”
While there was enthusiastic response to the Mayor’s confirmation that the “Pop-Up Pool” in Brooklyn Bridge Park will remain open for one more summer next year, an audience member asked about the possibility of replacing it with a “floating pool,” perhaps along the lines of the barge-borne Floating Pool Lady that was docked to Pier 5 in 2007. Te Mayor said this is under consideration, but called on a city official who said that “legal issues” need to be resolved.
The Mayor spoke about other borough and city-wide issues, including “3-K,” which will provide free, day long pre-school for all kids age three through kindergarten, improved police training and community involvement, and, in response to a question from a St. Francis student, New York City’s efforts, along with those of some 300 other U.S. cities, to exceed the requirements of the Paris climate accord.
Photo: Claude Scales for BHB.
