Brooklyn Heights residents: grab your walking shoes!
For three Sundays in September, pedestrians will take over Montague Street for the second annual open space experiment that will close the community’s primary shopping drag to automotive traffic.
Cars will be banned from the thoroughfare on Sept. 13, 20, and 27, transforming the street into a series of pedestrian plazas, according to Chelsea Mauldin of the Montague Street Business Improvement District.
As a whole, last July’s street closures were a boon for Montague Street businesses, with shopkeepers observing a 20-percent increase in sale on average — but Mauldin says this year will likely be better because it will take place later in the summer.
“One difficulty with having an event in July is that you face July weather,” she said. “Of our four Sundays last year, we had thunderstorms on two of them and crushing heat on one of them.”
The weather isn’t the only thing Mauldin is hoping will differ from the experiment’s inaugural run (errr, walk).
She said the merchants association will develop programming to keep passersby occupied during the street closures — and potentially draw them to businesses.
Mauldin also noted that the Sept. 13 street closure will coincide with the Brooklyn Book Festival — a scheduling overlap that could mean bringing huge crowds to the Montague Street pedestrian experiment.
