Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso on Thursday delivered his third State of the Borough address, highlighting his administration’s accomplishments in 2024 and outlining his vision for the city’s most populous borough in the year ahead.
Addressing fellow policymakers, community leaders and Brooklynites who gathered at the Boys and Girls High School auditorium in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Reynoso reflected on the progress made over the past year.
The borough president cited the groundbreaking of a state-of-the-art women’s health center and neonatal intensive care unit at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health; the launch of a $50,000 “Community Baby Shower Fund” to support community-led baby showers for new and expecting Brooklyn parents; efforts to keep open four child care centers that were facing sudden closure; and a $40,000 allocation to Opening Act, a Brooklyn-born nonprofit that brings inclusive theater education to New York City public schools, in partnership with Bushwick native and arts advocate Anthony Ramos. He also noted more than $15 million invested into Brooklyn’s K-12 public schools and over $5 million into CUNY.
“And we won our first WNBA Championship,” Reynoso proudly declared.
Reynoso, who has long advocated for a comprehensive plan to strategically guide New York City’s long-term growth and investments since his time as a City Council member, lamented the city’s stagnant housing and transit infrastructure compared to other major urban centers.
He highlighted his push to advance the 14-mile Interborough Express (IBX) train line and to preserve the Brooklyn Marine Terminal as a manufacturing district.
Reynoso called on local lawmakers to return New York City to its roots as a place of bold ideas — one that invests in its people and leads by example for the rest of the world.
“New York City was once synonymous with progress and opportunity – but not anymore. As the rest of the world builds, we’ve become obsessed with keeping things the same and keeping people out. New York City must return to the business of opportunity,” Reynoso said, while previewing parts of his 2025 Comprehensive Plan for Brooklyn, set to be released in full in the coming weeks.
The 2025 plan builds on the framework Reynoso introduced in 2023, which was hailed as the largest borough-specific planning effort in the city’s history. A key addition to this year’s plan is an “Access to Opportunity Index,” which outlines disparities in jobs, health, education, transit and climate risk across Brooklyn neighborhoods. The index will serve as a guide for addressing inequities in historically underserved communities.
“What the index makes clear is not where Brooklyn is failing, but where government is failing Brooklyn, and we can use this index as a tool for advocacy, accountability and planning to build opportunity in the neighborhoods long deprived of it, like in Canarsie and Bed-Stuy, where my office has prioritized green space investments into neighborhoods that are underfunded or neglected and have insufficient parkland,” Reynoso said.
Other new initiatives outlined in the plan focus on maternal health, workforce development and support for emerging artists.
In line with Reynoso’s goal to make Brooklyn the safest borough in New York City to give birth, he announced a new partnership with Brooklyn College to launch New York State’s first credit-bearing Perinatal Mental Health (PMH) Advanced Certificate Program.
“My first year was about the money. My second year, it was all about baby showers. Now, we’re adding another chapter to our effort to solve the maternal health crisis, and for this, we are returning to our schools,” Reynoso said. “I’m so excited to announce a new collaboration with Brooklyn College.”
Recognizing Brooklyn’s role as a global leader in arts and culture, Reynoso unveiled a new Brooklyn Arts Ambassador Initiative aimed at spotlighting emerging artists and connecting local creatives with opportunities.
“This initiative is designed to spotlight emerging artists, connect creatives with opportunities, and build a Brooklyn-based mentorship network in the arts,” Reynoso said.
As the inaugural Arts Ambassador, Colm Dillane — a multidisciplinary artist and fashion designer known as KidSuper — redesigned the official gold Brooklyn script pins using fonts he once doodled in his notebooks. All audience members received the limited-edition pins, reviving a beloved tradition started by former Borough President Marty Markowitz, who handed out thousands of the originals during his 12-year tenure.
While the original pins are here to stay, Reynoso said the special edition pins will be released once a year.
“I’m going to task everyone here with a challenge. You all get to design [the special edition pin],” Reynoso encouraged the audience. “You send us your submission of what you want the pin to look like and I might be standing here next year talking about your design.”
Other initiatives ramping up in 2025 include “Bushwick 1000,” a multi-year effort to secure employment for 1,000 unemployed young adults from Bushwick, in partnership with RiseBoro, Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow and St. Nicks Alliance; “Divine Dwellings,” which brings together six houses of worship and Bricks and Mortals to facilitate housing development on church-owned land; and a Youth Advisory Council, developed in partnership with the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, that empowers 20 Brooklyn high school students to develop and propose policy-based solutions to citywide challenges.
