Spring is in full swing, and so are plans for park spaces in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
Open space activists and park committees recently converged at Warsaw, the popular Greenpoint concert hall, for a “Push for Parks” meeting, to discuss and provide updates to the many park developments in North Brooklyn.
The United Friends of McCarren Park kicked off the proceedings with updates on the pool. As widely reported, plans are underway to fill the pool, currently used as a concert venue in the summer, with water by 2011 for summer use. Though the venue will thus be gone, there will still be film screenings, craft fairs and rock shows during the spring, as well as an ice skating rink during the winter.
Currently, money collected from events at the pool goes to the city, but Open Spaces Association’s Stephanie Thayer and Parks Department attorneys are finalizing an agreement to keep the revenues within the community. The new park design also boasts more benches, trees, gardens, dog runs and organic food vendors.
Friends of the Bushwick Inlet Park received good news with the defeat of the TransGas power plant, its chief competition for the land. On the 28-acre space, they will try to move ahead on a soccer field and a community center. Designed on a hill, the proposed center allows visitors to walk from the ground directly onto the roof, which will have trees, benches, grass, and solar panels.
Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning board member Trina McKeever anticipates that it will be built by the summer of 2009, but TransGas just filed an appeal with the NYS Siting Board that may cause delays. Also, the Mayor’s office needs to relocate the business City Storage before the park moves forward.
At the northern end of Kent Avenue will be Transmitter Park, named after a former WNYC radio station at the site. The main recreational area with a caf
