Williamsburg, NY – Park-starved South Side is so desperate for green space that residents are entertaining the idea of building a park on top of the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway.
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Two neighborhood groups, St. Nicks Alliance and El Puente, have sponsored a $100,000 feasibility study, awarded to DLand Designers, to determine how to build new parkland over an expressway that has been blamed for everything from increasing asthma rates to exacerbating gang violence ever since Robert Moses shoved it through the neighborhood 50 years ago.
Ideally, the groups want a 1.2-acre concrete platform over the BQE between S. Third and S. Fifth streets.
An existing park between Broadway and S. Fourth Street, known as Rodney Park, covers about two-thirds of an acre. Residents want more — if the money is there.
“It would be a good idea to cover the highway because of noise and pollution,” said Nilda Romero, who attended a recent forum. “We need a baseball field. We really don’t play much soccer here.”
Councilwoman Diana Reyna (D-Williamsburg), who first proposed adding a plaza over the highway in 2005, hopes that the city will eventually build a concrete deck that will link Rodney Park to Marcy Avenue, while adding benches along the area and creating one acre of open space above the highway.
“In addition to achieving open space, we would be uniting communities that got divided [by the highway],” said Reyna. “I don’t want to limit the concept of what could be applied.”
DLand architects would not predict how much a park would cost, though a new two-acre park in Boston, built over a parking garage in that city’s financial district, cost about $76 million. A finished study about the feasibility — and cost — of this project is expected in a year.
There is a pressing need for more open space in the heart of Williamsburg, a neighborhood that has just .6 acres of open space per 1,000 residents — roughly one-fifth the citywide average. More open space is being built along the waterfront, but that doesn’t help the bulk of the area’s residents, said Frank Lang, the housing director for St. Nicks Alliance.
“It is always easier to do things at the periphery, but people don’t live on the periphery, do they?” he said.
We the people of Williamsburg don’t need a park to play; we need more affordable housing to live!!…
These ideas were already 20 years ago and never pass at city council…
Give it time and soon will the heimishe oilem in williamsburg also want a park above the BQE near Lee or bedford ave
we need two orginazations such as UJO & UJ CARE to do the same between bedford & lee avenues
What takes a year for something so simple?
What’s wrong with u people. What’s wront with having a park or breathing space. Yes we need house but parkland is also important.
I can’t wait till its done on 61st. In BP.
Wonder who will be funding this project, in such an economic crisis where the city and the people are tightening the belts where ever possible, who has the extra 75-100 Million dollars to finance such an “idea”..
what a great way to waste resources.
I wasn’t against cutting the vouchers, but if they have the extra millions, the city should be spending it on better things than $100,000,000 for a park that would benefit one neighborhood.
(p.s. although they haven’t said a price yet, building in New York is a lot more expensive than in Boston, so that’s a pretty decent place to use to get an idea)
People in Williamsburg decided to live like meshugoyim and now they want a park?
The idea is wishful thinking but these people made their bed already. As it is we are all ruining the country with the same stupidity of building on top of each other and taking down trees and grass. I’m not a liberal but this stupidity of complaining about this is non sense. Nobody has a gun to your head and tells us to live in Williamsburg.
There are 15 major cities and metropolitans that we can decide to live in but we don’t because we are lazy and want the bus, train, mikveh, shul, yeshiva, restuarants, stores, entertainemnt, chasunah halls all on the same block. Actually on someone elses block.
“It would be a good idea to cover the highway because of noise and pollution,” said Nilda Romero, who attended a recent forum. “We need a baseball field………………..
how do you build a basball field on top of a HIGHWAY??????
We should have learned decades ago that WB would become a yiddeshe ghetto. Its time for a moratorium on new housing units and limits on development. WB is not yerushalayim and the mindless insistence by some heimeshe groups on living here makes no sense. We should be providing economic incentives to get people to relocate upsstate and leave some room for those already here.
oy vay
another way to mass up the slowest expresway in north america
graciassssssss!!!!!!!!!
Had ot been up to some people they’d build house on gutters and on trees, these money minded people don’t see why kids and adults need space to air out, why are all parks in red hook and green point taken by our heimisha yungaliet every night? Why should we have our own parks why do we have to go to other neighborhoods for peace and quite?
Who needs a study, go to Detroit at see how tons of parks are built above 696 expressway.
STOP THE BUILDING IN NEW YORK!!!!!!!!!!
yes build greenery all over and let us get out of this crampy brooklyn once and for all!!!!!!!!
stop giving me vouchers gov programs give it only upstate!!!!!!
Let’s compare cancer studies from residents living above the FDR and GWB and if pollution is treated well and there is no increased risk, then add 2 whole square blocks in williamsburg with apartments, shopping, schools, whatever, that would be nice, I’m sure some pollution exhaust technology exists to deal with the poison
To add to what #14 wrote – There are two parks over Highway 696, one in Oak Park and one in Southfield, cutting through the frum neighborhood. The frum community fought very hard to get those Parks. They are beautiful and an outlet for the frum kids and are used as a short cut from one neighborhood to the other. Someone should go take a look at them and will really get good ideas for what they can do in Williamsburg.