At the Brooklyn Heights Association’s annual meeting, Feb. 17 at
St. Francis College on Remsen Street, Nancy Bowe, president of the association,
spoke about the developments facing Brooklyn Heights in the coming year.
Before introducing author Philip Lopate, who delivered the keynote speech,
“New York’s Waterfront and How it Got That Way,” Bowe addressed
the roughly 200 residents in attendance.
“We will see development activity that is unprecedented for the last
50 years,” said Bowe, “and what comes with it is an unprecedented
level of risk.
“We’ve all been watching what’s happening in DUMBO; everything
that can be renovated has been renovated,” she said and mentioned
last summer’s approval of upzoning under the Downtown Brooklyn Plan,
the addition of cruise ships to Brooklyn’s piers and the development
of Brooklyn Bridge Park along the Heights waterfront.
“In the next year,” said Bowe, “the BHA will have an unprecedented
role,” in Brooklyn’s future, and she urged members to become
vocal and involved with the ongoing Downtown Traffic Study, as well as
efforts by BHA members to push for historic preservation of a new landmark
district, which she called the “Borough Hall Skyscraper District.”
Montague Street, she said, had its own fan base of “unsolicited volunteers”
willing to organize a picket line and boycott if the old Waldenbooks space
at the corner of Montague and Henry streets was inhabited by yet another
optometrist, pharmacy or cellular phone store.
And she congratulated BHA members who have volunteered at Public School
8, on Hicks Street at Middagh Street, and helped the school not only to
flourish but also seek out more funding and locations for expansion.
But the issue of greatest concern came up towards the end of her address.
“It is extremely frustrating to be here on Feb. 17, having been to
several meetings among planners of [Brooklyn Bridge Park] and knowing
that most of you have not had the opportunity to comment on the plan,”
she said. That plan now includes housing as the primary revenue generator.
“We view the concept of housing with an open mind,” Bowe said,
but wanted more details and to be able to “study closely the BBPDC’s
financial analysis, upon which their entire housing study hinges.”
Following the awards presentation, Lopate, who lives in Carroll Gardens,
addressed the future of Brooklyn’s waterfronts, the basis of his
new book, “Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan.”
Immediately the Brooklyn native, a New York Times contributor, who teaches
journalism at Columbia University, the New School and Hofstra University,
was asked his thoughts about the Brooklyn Bridge Park plan.
“In the best of all worlds it would be great if public space didn’t
have to pay for itself,” Lopate said. “It’s sad that we’ve
reached this point.”
But he said that while he wasn’t in favor of tall, high-rise buildings
on the waterfront, he did find the “human hive, the Casbah”
of activity that low-rise housing could create preferable to just a wide-open
park “that’s only good when you’re in a park-y kind of
mood.”
“Should it go to high-rise housing, or should it go to shipping?
I might favor a mix of both,” said Lopate, who said Brooklyn’s
deep channel is naturally suited to shipping.
He said that to fear luxury hotels taking over the waterfront was as absurd
to him as feeling the waterfront area “needs to be protected by a
massive green belt. People do not move to New York City to get closer
to nature.”
“Couldn’t it be a destination for ordinary citizens in their
daily routines, not just when they’re in a leisurely, park-y mood?”
he asked and pointed out how much fun the developed areas of Water Street
in DUMBO were to walk about.
“Granted, there’s something sort of soothing about slowly moving
water,” he said, reading from his book, “but for 30 minutes,
maximum. Soon it becomes a sterile delight for the urbanite raised on
constant stimulation, and shopping.”
When asked about using housing for the revenue, Lopate mulled it over.
“How can we trust their numbers?” he asked, pointing out economic
variability. “At some point we’re going to leap into the thick
of it and somebody’s going to get very rich. And it’s not going
to be me.”
When Lopate was finished, Bowe accepted questions from the audience.
One man expressed concern about the 30-story tower he’d seen presented
by park planners for Pier 6, which he said would obstruct his view of
the Statue of Liberty. Bowe said it would block hers, too, but said she
would not mind “if I’m convinced this is the only way we can
get a park.”
“I don’t mind one bit. I am not convinced of that yet. There
are still conversations to be had.”
