A History of Brooklyn Bridge Park

by Nancy Webster

  ON MARCH 11, 1990, Maria Favuzzi, who had served as the Community Board 6 representative during the CB2 Piers Subcommittee hearings, announced her resignation as Coalition co-chair “with confidence in knowing that the Coalition is strong, that its membership is dedicated, and that there is inherent logic, foresight, and persuasiveness in the proposal that the splendid piece of waterfront from Atlantic Avenue to the Manhattan Bridge be used for maximum public benefit in a fiscally responsible way.”4 Manheim and Fox continued serving as Coalition cochairs, and no attempt was made to find a replacement for Favuzzi. Following her resignation, Favuzzi fulfilled her commitment “to doing what I can do, within the constraints of time on me, to promote the goal of the Coalition,” continuing to meet regularly with the Coalition and serve as a conduit with residents of Cobble Hill and other neighborhoods outside Brooklyn Heights.

  IN OCTOBER 1990, the public entities reentered the planning discussions for the west Brooklyn piers, when the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the New York City Public Development Corporation (PDC) released the results of a jointly commissioned study prepared by consultant Gary Hack of the Boston urban-design firm Carr, Lynch, Hack and Sandell.

  Representatives from Carr, Lynch, Hack and Sandell provided Coalition members and other Brooklyn Heights residents with summaries of the findings from the report at community workshops on October 27 and November 28, 1990. After the repeated neglect that the Coalition and other neighborhood representatives had received from the public entities in the past, the Coalition members were encouraged by the announcement of the forthcoming report and the efforts that the UDC and PDC were making to include the local community in the discussion and evaluation of the proposed alternatives for the piers. Following the initial meeting with representatives of the Boston firm, Manheim reported to the members of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition Working Group that all the public bodies with which the consultants had met were awaiting the full results of the forthcoming report “with positive expectations.”5

  One factor that did not go unnoticed during the community workshops was the absence of any representatives from the Port Authority. In a meeting with Manheim following the announcement of the preliminary findings from Hack’s report, Port Authority executive director Stan Brezenoff reported that the agency was not directly involved in the project, assuring the Coalition that it would not initiate any additional plans for the disposition of the west Brooklyn piers “in the near future.”6

  On January 10, 1991, Gary Hack introduced five alternative plans for Piers 1–5 to an audience of more than 100 neighborhood leaders, elected officials, and other Brooklyn residents at a special communitywide meeting at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights. Hack’s plans for the piers included

  A modified “Brooklyn Bridge Park” plan, featuring 37 acres of landscaped open space with 30,000 square feet of light-industrial space, a 200-boat marina, 160,000 square feet of structured parking, and a large skating rink

  An “Urban Waterfront” plan, featuring a conference center, offices, hotels, and a marina, as well as 22 acres of open space

  A “Hillclimb” plan, featuring a combination of commercial developments (a conference center, a boatel, retail showrooms, and office space), light-industrial use of existing spaces, a 150- to 200-boat marina, and 22 acres of open space

  A “Break Even” plan, consisting of 1.9 million square feet of housing, office space, retail shops, and other commercial constructions

  A “Warehouse Re-use” plan, through which existing structures would be repurposed for storage and light-industrial uses, along with a 150- to 200boat marina and 8 acres of open space 7

  A thirty-minute slide presentation depicting the layout and specific features of the five alternatives was accompanied by a detailed financial analysis of each plan. In spite of the community’s positive expectations for Hack’s report, Manheim and many of the others in attendance were distressed to learn that the study favored housing over other commercial-development options for revenue production and to hear the consultant question the financial viability of the modified “Brooklyn Bridge Park” plan favored by the Coalition, for which he projected an $88.9 million gap between total costs and revenues (compared with the $8 million gap projected by the Coalition).8 “I regret that analysis of our proposal was not more informed by an interactive dialogue,” Manheim complained to reporter Michael Clark following the meeting.9

  In spite of his frustration with Hack’s recommendations and financial analysis, Manheim was unperturbed, joining with fellow Coalition Working Group members John Watts, Terry Schnadelbach, Robert Rubin, and Ted Liebman on February 12 to meet with Hack and financial consultant Lynne Sagalyn to discuss the two groups’ conflicting projections of the costs for the alternative plans for the piers. “I believe this meeting presents a rare opportunity to attempt a truly collaborative endeavor in seeking consensus on a redevelopment approach for the downtown Brooklyn waterfront,” Manheim explained to his colleagues in the Working Group a few days before the meeting.10

  ON APRIL 6, 1991, Borough President Howard Golden convened a special meeting at St. Francis College with elected officials, community board officials, and other residents from the neighborhoods adjacent to the west Brooklyn piers. Golden’s purpose in calling the meeting was twofold:

  1 To generate support for the creation of an independent public authority to acquire, operate, and supervise the planning and development of the public use of the Piers 1–5 site

  2 To announce his endorsement of and request the community’s support for the $67.4 million “Warehouse Re-use” plan

  As described in Gary Hack’s report, the “Warehouse Re-use” plan would convert the piers’ existing warehouses for trade shows, exhibition halls, restaurants, retail markets, and office space, while also creating a 150- to 200-boat marina, light-industrial lofts, and eight acres of open space along the East River (figure 15).11

  Golden’s proposal for the creation of an independent public authority to oversee the piers was well received by both the Brooklyn elected officials and the community leaders attending the meeting, as well as by representatives of the public entities who were later informed of the idea. “We could live with a less-than-ideal [project] if we got public site control upfront,” Manheim commented at the time. “It’s awfully hard to get a private developer to the do the public’s business.”12

  State and city officials, many of whom had grown weary of the routine setbacks and constant conflicts with the local community, publicly welcomed the idea of relinquishing control of—and responsibility for—the disposition of the west Brooklyn waterfront. “We’d like to have the site ready for development when somebody’s ready to develop it,” said a PDC spokesperson after having been informed of Golden’s proposal.13

  For Golden, who opposed the predominantly private development of the west Brooklyn waterfront but remained unconvinced about the safety and financial feasibility of the “Brooklyn Bridge Park” plan, the “Warehouse Re-use” plan represented the ideal alternative, ensuring that the scenic views and tranquil streets of his constituents in Brooklyn Heights would be preserved until a compromise agreeable to both the local community and the public authorities could be achieved. While other elected officials and community leaders welcomed a temporary solution that would forestall additional actions by the Port Authority until a suitable plan could be realized, they also worried that Golden’s temporary solution, without the benefit of long-term comprehensive planning, might end up becoming a permanent plan for the piers.

  On first hearing, Manheim, Fox, and the other Coalition members, who had already had private discussions with Golden about the potential viability of an interim proposal for the disposition of the piers, were guardedly supportive of the “Warehouse Re-use” plan. “I think it is a very constructive idea to use this window of opportunity to have somebody own the land until public funding is readily available,” Manheim confided to a reporter before the meeting with G
olden.14 Manheim was careful to add in subsequent statements, however, that the interim plan was not an end in itself and should not represent a halt in community activism in support of a park on the piers: “An interim use would make sense, if we see it as a stepping-stone on the way to building the park.”15

  FIGURE 15

  In 1991, the Port Authority introduced four new plans for the Brooklyn piers. The “Warehouse Re-use” design was supported by Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden as an interim solution to the disposition of the piers.

  COURTESY OF CARR, LYNCH, HACK AND SANDELL, INC.

  Elected officials from Brooklyn Heights and the neighboring communities agreed with Manheim’s assessment of the “Warehouse Re-use” plan. “It’s an exciting possibility if it’s truly an interim use,” said Stephen DeBrienza, who represented Red Hook and Carroll Gardens on the City Council and chaired the council’s Subcommittee on Waterfront Development. “The danger is that it might become the only plan.”16

  THE DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN Borough President Golden and the Coalition intensified after the meeting at St. Frances College on April 6. On April 16, under pressure from Vincent Tese, executive director of the Urban Development Corporation, to reach a communitywide consensus on the appropriate plan for the piers within sixty days, Golden sent a letter to the Coalition soliciting a formal response by the end of the month to his proposal for the creation of a public authority for the piers, his call for support of the “Warehouse Re-use” plan, and his request for input into the formulation of the “planning principles” that would guide the development of the piers under the new public entity.17

  The Coalition took Golden’s request for a timely response seriously, with Manheim and Fox convening a special Coalition meeting at the Brooklyn Club at 75 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights on April 22 to consider Golden’s proposals. The first order of business was Golden’s recommendation for the communitywide adoption of Gary Hack’s interim “Warehouse Re-use” plan for Piers 1–5. The Coalition members had continued to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the plan, with a consensus gradually emerging that the interim plan, which dedicated only eight acres of the piers property to open space (the lowest percentage of any of the five alternative plans), would do more to hinder than to help the Coalition’s ultimate objective of a park on the waterfront. In the end, the thirty members in attendance voted unanimously to reject Golden’s proposal for an interim plan for the piers. Manheim clarified to a reporter after the meeting that he and his fellow Coalition members remained open to an interim use of the piers property “so long as it does not interfere with the achievement and accomplishment of the long term goals” for the site.18

  In spite of the unanimous rebuke of Golden’s proposal to adopt an interim-use plan for Piers 1–5, the Coalition members fully endorsed Golden’s call for an independent public entity to oversee the future development and maintenance of the piers, with the additional recommendation that the Coalition’s “Sixteen Guiding Principles” (as they existed at the time) should serve as the charter of the new public agency. “They are broad enough to encompass almost every public figure’s stated objectives,” Manheim and Fox explained in a letter to Golden a few weeks after the meeting, “and precise enough to avoid papering over fundamental differences that might arise.”19

  In the event that a new public entity was created, the Coalition insisted that its authority should include the right to ownership, development, and oversight of “the entire downtown Brooklyn waterfront.” The emerging consensus among Coalition members was that, in addition to Piers 1–5 and the adjacent upland areas, the site should include “the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, Fulton Ferry Landing and the old fireboat station, and Empire–Fulton Ferry State Park.”20

  THE COALITION’S UNANIMOUS REJECTION of Golden’s proposal for an interim-use plan for the piers was an early volley in a cycle of public disputes and private negotiations between the Coalition and the Brooklyn borough president that would continue for the next several years. “Howard was very nervous about this becoming what would be known as a jeweled necklace for the Brooklyn Heights community and no one else,” recalls Golden’s chief of staff, Marilyn Gelber, of the borough president’s frequent clashes with the Coalition over the best plan for the piers. “He wasn’t ready to simply accept their vision for the park.”21

  In addition to his general mistrust of Brooklyn Heights, Golden’s unwillingness to relinquish control of the park project to the local community was also rooted in his sense of what would actually be required to bring a public park to the west Brooklyn waterfront. “We thought it’s great that the community feels that sense of ownership and that they’re out there fiercely defending their point of view,” explains Gelber, “but being in government—and you know government can be arrogant at times—we felt that we owned it and it was our job to make something happen. We realized that ultimately it was only by getting city government and state government to work together that we would have some leverage over the Port Authority.”22

  Shortly after learning of the Coalition’s negative vote on the “Warehouse Re-use” plan, Golden fired back, publicly reiterating his lack of confidence in the “parochial plan” for a park along the piers supported by the Coalition. “I wasn’t committing to any plan until I had the opportunity to have all the factors looked into,” Golden explained to Brooklyn reporter Michael Clark. “I wanted some kind of consensus because we want to bring in the larger interest of Brooklyn. You can’t just have one group proposing a plan and then go accept it. We need further discussion on this thing.”23

  “There has historically been this tension about whether the park was for everybody or whether the park was for Brownstone Brooklyn,” explains former City Council member Ken Fisher regarding the mistrust of Golden and other Brooklyn residents for the Coalition’s plan for the park. “The Coalition has virtually always been an organization of elites. And the thing about elites is that they make up their minds about what’s right for everybody else and then they execute on it.”24 At this stage in the planning process, the majority of Brooklynites were either, like Golden, resistant to the prospect of having the public park designed on their behalf by representatives of the affluent neighborhoods adjacent to the waterfront or completely indifferent to or unaware of the proposed project. While the New York Times and the local newspapers in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill provided their readers with regular coverage of important developments related to the piers, the New York Post, which represented a blue-collar readership more typical of the rest of Brooklyn, and other local Brooklyn newspapers ignored the proposed development altogether.

  Golden’s resistance to the Coalition’s plan for a park on Piers 1–5 was echoed by the Port Authority, with which the borough president had recently begun negotiations on the transfer of the ownership and oversight of the property to an independent public entity. “The Coalition is not the only voice being heard,” said PDC spokesperson Lee Silberstein, “and I don’t think the Coalition is as broad based as they would like to believe.”25

  Informed of the comments by Golden and Silberstein, Manheim maintained that the “Brooklyn Bridge Park” plan—not Golden’s preferred “Warehouse Re-use” alternative—represented the true consensus among Brooklyn residents. The borough president, Manheim insisted, was the “lone dissenter” in the public discussions regarding the future of the piers. “We have to do a major education job on Golden,” said Manheim.26

  In spite of the public disagreement about the appropriate plan for the Piers 1–5, Golden, Manheim, and Silberstein expressed optimism that the issue would soon be settled and a suitable plan for the piers would be adopted.27 To this end, a Coalition Working Group (composed of Manheim, Fox, John Watts, Ted Liebman, Roy Sloane, and Robert Rubin) began meeting regularly throughout the summer to discuss the integration of the two groups’ respective guiding principles for the park.28 During the same period, Golden and his staff were similarly occupied, adapting the guidelines for the devel
opment of the piers that the borough president had sent to Governor Mario Cuomo a year and a half earlier to incorporate the concerns expressed in the guiding principles supported by the Coalition.

  At the suggestion of Golden’s chief of staff, Marilyn Gelber, the two groups soon began to meet together regularly with the objective of developing a set of principles for the park that would be acceptable to everyone. “The idea was to try to make peace between Howard and Tony by focusing on the things we agreed on,” explains Gelber, “and to show Vincent Tese at the UDC that we had a sense of unity between the local community and Borough Hall. We were all arguing over things that might never happen and focusing on where we disagreed. I, in my naiveté or wishful thinking, basically invited in a lot of the community players to my office in Borough Hall and said, ‘Why don’t we focus on what we agree on, instead of all the things we keep fighting about?’ ”29

  IN AN ADDRESS to business and civic leaders in New York City on September 24, 1991, Mario Cuomo reaffirmed his support for a public solution to the controversy over Piers 1–5 and called for all the parties involved in the disagreement over the disposition of the piers to reach a consensus and follow through on the proposed development.30 By this time, both the Coalition and Borough President Golden were satisfied that significant progress had been made toward the formulation of a set of common principles to be used to guide the charter for the proposed independent public entity in charge of the piers.

  Although no final consensus had been achieved, the list of common principles on which the Coalition Working Group and Golden’s office had agreed was impressive and featured many of the key concerns that had been raised by the various competing parties in the piers controversy during the previous seven years, including protecting the scenic-view plane, encouraging public participation and review at each stage of planning through public hearings, maximizing public recreation space, promoting water-related development, providing meaningful jobs for the local community, minimizing noise and pollution, and exploring possibilities for commercial development (including limited housing) that would ensure the sustainable fiscal viability of the plan.31