On Monday, Brooklyn finally gets a chance to park it on the stoop.
The city announced on Thursday that the first phase of Brooklyn Bridge Park — featuring a vast green lawn and a granite front-stoop sitting area located on Pier 1 — will open to the public.
The public and a handful of elected officials — including Mayor Bloomberg, who allocated $55-million in city funds as part of a takeover agreement with the state earlier this month — will enjoy a “Great Lawn” with sweeping views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline, while children will take advantage of a small playground.
The newly opened area will be most-easily accessible from Old Fulton Street in DUMBO.
The opening of Pier 1 — first promised in late 2009, then in January — was delayed in a squabble over which agency, the state’s Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation or the new city agency would be in charge of finishing the full, $350-million waterfront development project, which had stalled because of incomplete financing.
That confusion was cleared up when the city and state reached its deal last month, giving the city control over the remainder of the construction and operation of the development’s open space, which will eventually cut a 1.7-mile ribbon of green from DUMBO to Atlantic Avenue in Cobble Hill.
Though supporters of the park crowed about the opening announcement, it’ll still be a year before the city determines how it will fund the entirety of the park and raise the $16-million annual maintenance costs.
Bloomberg told The Brooklyn Paper earlier this month that a “money-making venture” — housing or otherwise — would be built in the park to keep the self-sustaining mandate in place, but housing has been a point of controversy and a committee to find alternatives to that funding route is in the works.
A second recreation area, on Pier 6 at Atlantic Avenue, is expected to open later this spring.
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 1 opening will begin at 9:30 am on Monday, March 22, at Old Fulton Street and Furman Street in DUMBO.
