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Just because the city is a jungle, it doesn’t have to be a concrete jungle.
The Parks Department is about to reclaim a treacherous, reviled intersection in Fort Greene known as the “Seven Corners,” where Fulton Street, Hanson Place, Greene Avenue and S. Oxford Street meet.
The blacktop tangle will be remade, beginning in August, with safer crossings for pedestrians and, later this year, with flowers and vegetation in a compact recreation area.
“There will be wide sidewalks and a small nook near the existing sophora tree where people can congregate,” Parks spokesman Phil Abramson wrote in an e-mail.
The crossroads has long been a confusing jumble for drivers and pedestrians. A few years ago, the Department of Transportation implanted bollards to improve safety, but the drawback, many said, was that the Seven Corners became even more unattractive.
“It’s ugly,” said Ruth Goldstein, a longtime member of the Fort Greene Association. “It could be an urban asset, but unfortunately it’s a liability.”
Fort Greene has several multi-street and oddly shaped intersections due to the diagonal route of Fulton Street, which does not conform with the grid pattern. Some have been reclaimed in during previous moments of urban revitalization such as Fowler Square, a Parisien-style square built in 1976 where Fulton Street and Lafayette Avenue cross paths.
Goldstein and other members of the civic group said they support the imminent roadwork.
“It’s going to help,” Goldstein told The Brooklyn Paper.
©2009 Community Newspaper Group
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