A History of Brooklyn Bridge Park
Page 18
“I’m sure that there are a lot of people who were involved in what happened,” Butzel acknowledges, “but [Coles] was the point person, and it was under his pressure that Giuliani finally came through.”12
WHILE THE COALITION WAS WORKING to build support for the park by sponsoring activities to bring people to the site and advocating with local elected officials, LDC president Joanne Witty had her hands full trying to build consensus among the representatives of the communities and business groups included in the LDC. According to Greg Brooks, Borough President Howard Golden’s chief of staff and the first vice president of the LDC, the early meetings of the corporation were highly contentious affairs. “I led the first two or three meetings, before Joanne Witty became president,” says Brooks. “It was a really important process because the leadership came from the community and not from government—but it was also extremely challenging. Joanne took a tremendous amount of flack in those early meetings, but she stood her ground and did what she had to do.”13
After a year negotiating privately with the Port Authority and conducting the charrettes throughout the local community, the LDC held its first formal public meeting on November 7, 1999, with 350 organizational leaders and local residents assembling at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Brooklyn for workshops in “Urban Connections,” “Funding Structure,” and “Regulations, Landscape and Environment,” followed by an open-house gathering for leaders of community organizations the following day. LDC president Joanne Witty, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, whose firm had recently been hired by the LDC to develop a Master Plan for the park, were on hand to address the crowd, respond to questions about the LDC’s plans for the piers, and listen to the concerns of local residents.
LDC and Coalition board member John Watts was at the meetings as well, representing the Coalition’s insistence that the design of the park include as much “soft and green” open space as possible. “So often in the planning of parks,” Watts insisted, “the concern for green space comes at the end of the process. And then as it is built up, that green space becomes smaller and smaller until there is hardly any park left. The question is, at what point is it not a park?”14
WHILE SUNSET SAMBA WAS A SUCCESS, both as a fund-raiser and as a publicity event for the waterfront, Koval recognized that the Coalition would have to reach far beyond the wealthy residents of Brooklyn Heights and the city’s other social and political elites if the park had any real hope of success. “I’ve always felt that the focus on creating a citywide park was crucial,” says Koval. “In this neighborhood in particular, with all the income inequality in the city, it’s damn important that we attracted everyone in the city. And I think one of the really important things that we did was to reach out to organizations all over the city and make it a citywide issue. We were never going to get the money we needed for a park that would serve as the front yard for a wealthy neighborhood. We were only going to get it for a park that would be for everyone. And how do you do that? Well, you ask them what they want and give them a platform to create activities.”15
During the spring and summer of 2000, Koval and the Coalition took a variety of steps to reach out to the public beyond Brooklyn Heights and the other communities immediately adjacent to the 1.3 miles of waterfront property on which the park would be located. The Coalition formed the Education Advisory Council (which included the presidents of Pratt Institute, New York City College of Technology, Medgar Evers College, and Community School Board 13), while Koval also met with religious leaders and representatives of neighborhood associations and other community groups from across the borough. In addition to including non-waterfront communities in its plans for the park, the Coalition reached out to the borough’s children, organizing a series of educational workshops involving 100 students from five public and private high schools in the neighborhoods adjacent to the park.
The summer of 2000 also witnessed the debut of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Summer Film Festival, with more than 500 visitors gathering at Empire–Fulton Ferry State Park for an outdoor screening of On the Waterfront. The film series, which was organized by Coalition Film Committee co-chairs Nell Archer and Kate Crane, would become one of the Coalition’s most popular activities and would serve over the next few years as many New Yorkers’ initial exposure to the park site.
WHILE THE COALITION’S AGGRESSIVE EFFORTS to include visitors from beyond Brooklyn Heights and the adjacent neighborhoods were vitally important to securing the ongoing support of elected officials and public authorities, Koval’s vision of a citywide park, welcoming a diverse mosaic of visitors from throughout the city and around the world, was not popular with everyone.
The summer 2000 issue of the Coalition’s newsletter alerted its readers to the threat posed to the park by the recently formed Waterfront Development Watch, which was described as a “small group” of Joralemon Street residents living on the three blocks west of Hicks Street, just up the hill from the Coalition and the LDC’s shared headquarters on 334 Furman Street, who were concerned that their quiet, tree-lined street would eventually be overrun by people pouring into and out of the park.
Throughout the summer, members of the Waterfront Development Watch and other disgruntled Brooklyn Heights residents went public with their concerns about the potential impact of the proposed park on their neighborhood, speaking out at community meetings and in interviews with local journalists. In August, the brewing neighborhood controversy surfaced in the New York Times, where reporter Julian E. Barnes fueled the conflict and animosity within the neighborhood by presenting what many Brooklyn Heights residents viewed as an unfair caricature of the debate and the people involved in it.
In his article, Barnes quoted a number of park opponents from the Heights who openly worried that the opening of the park would precipitate a sudden barrage of graffiti, rowdy teens plaguing the neighborhood, and “muggings up and down the street.” “I’d rather see a Target or a Costco down there,” complained one local resident, “than see this neighborhood overwhelmed by people who come from someplace else.” Turning his attention to park advocates from the neighborhood, Barnes observed that “some [albeit unnamed] park supporters have argued that concerns over traffic, quality of life, crime, and litter are code words that betray a fear of blacks and Hispanics from poorer sections of the borough.”16
The Times article represented precisely the type of negative publicity and internal debate that park advocates had been working tirelessly over the previous year and a half to avoid, conducting planning charrettes and other public meetings to achieve public consensus about the park by ensuring that opinions and interests of all residents were recognized and addressed. Brooklyn journalist and park advocate Dennis Holt was particularly incensed by the harsh caricatures of those who opposed specific features of the park’s design. Describing the Times piece as “lamentable” and “irresponsible journalism,” Holt observed that, in focusing on the xenophobic and potentially racists comments of a few isolated individuals, the article essentially ignored park opponents’ substantive concerns about the financial model for the park, which would lean heavily on the private sector for its ongoing maintenance, and the dramatic increase in vehicular traffic that would inevitably result from the opening of a public park on the piers.
“We can, as people have,” Holt maintained, “disagree on what kind of park we ought to have, or any park at all for that matter, without issuing innuendos about race and color. The tragedy of the Times story is that people all across the city and the country who know nothing about what is going on will read this and probably believe it.”17
With each step toward the park’s realization, the internal debates would intensify, along with the tendency to question in the media the motivations of both park opponents and park advocates. Even with the heated disagreements in some sectors of the waterfront community, the ability of the Coalition and the LDC to rally local residents behind Brooklyn Bridge Park maintained the suppo
rt for the project among elected officials.
IN SEPTEMBER 2000, after having participated in more than fifty public meetings involving more than 2,000 participants expressing their preferences regarding both the general design and specific features of the park, LDC president Joanne Witty announced the long-awaited publication of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Illustrative Master Plan (figures 20–23). The Master Plan, which was prepared by Hamilton, Rabinovitz & Alschuler, was approved by a unanimous vote of the LDC board of directors.
In the midst of the private achievements and public celebrations, Witty still had serious concerns about the future of the project. “You have to understand that the park was still in peril at this point,” she confides. “It was never a done deal. The Master Plan quickly received the endorsement of various groups, including the Times, and that was important. But it was only a concept plan at this point. Our job was to keep it together [while it received the funding and public endorsements that would allow it to continue]. We were the ‘keepers of the Plan.’ ”18
At the time, the LDC’s ability to proceed with the planning of the park was repeatedly frustrated by the failure of the Pataki and Giuliani administrations to formally endorse the Master Plan and follow up with their financial commitments to the park. According to Witty, the delayed endorsement of the Master Plan was exacerbated by the lack of cooperation and communication between the state and city governments. “That was when the rubber really hit the road,” says Witty. “And getting there was really hard, because there had to be an agreement between these two parties before we could do anything. And the state and the city were not talking to each other. Meanwhile, the Port Authority was pulling its hair out.”19
While the LDC’s negotiations with the city and the state remained stalled, Witty continued to negotiate successfully behind the scenes with the Port Authority. In November, after taking several months to review the Master Plan, the agency appropriated $200,000 to refine the plan, begin environmental-impact studies for the property, and plan the transfer of control of the seventy-one-acre tract from the Port Authority to the a public entity in charge of the park’s construction.20
FIGURE 20
Brooklyn Bridge Park Illustrative Master Plan, 2000.
© URBAN STRATEGIES, INC.
FIGURE 21
Illustrative Master Plan: rendering of the walkway across Dumbo.
COURTESY OF MICHAEL McCANN
FIGURE 22
Illustrative Master Plan: rendering of the view from the Brooklyn Bridge.
COURTESY OF MICHAEL McCANN
FIGURE 23
Illustrative Master Plan: rendering of the promenade on Pier 1.
COURTESY OF MICHAEL McCANN
AT THE END OF 2000, Al Butzel, whose leadership had been instrumental in securing funding commitments from the borough, city, and state governments, resigned his position as president of the Coalition. With Koval serving as the public face of the Coalition, expanding the organization’s relationships with community leaders and interacting with the media, Butzel had been hard at work behind the scenes, using the connections he had established at Hudson River Park to broaden the Coalition’s base of environmental and public-advocacy groups and lobbying his contacts in state and city government to provide funding for the planning and construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park.
With the transfer of the park property from the Port Authority finally under way, state and city funding for the park nominally secured, and Koval’s outreach and programming emphasis for the park now in full swing, the Coalition’s president and executive director found themselves disagreeing about the most effective strategy for advancing the interests of both the organization and the park movement. “Al and I had different views,” explains Koval. “He knew the inside game on how to get to Pataki and Giuliani, and I didn’t. But I was very convinced that the only way we were going to move the park forward in the long term was to build a citywide constituency and the only way to build a citywide constituency was to bring people to the park and let them see the beauty of the site and become advocates.”21
With the two leaders at a stalemate, Koval submitted her resignation at the end of the year, explaining to the board the reasons why she was leaving. “I was shocked that they all came around and asked me to stay, and Al [left his position as president and] went on the board. He was very decent and good about it. Because of that, I think, the board increasingly shared my vision that we would bring people to the park through programming. The mantra that we developed in 2001 and going forward was ‘If you come, we [the LDC and the Coalition] will build it.’ ”22
“Marianna and I had a strained relationship,” acknowledges Butzel, “and not surprisingly, since we’re both people who want to do big things. She had a much better feel for the community, but I had a much better feel for the politics. It wasn’t easy for her, and it wasn’t easy for me. I came to respect her a lot.”23
ON JANUARY 8, 2001, six months after the combined $64 million pledge to the park from Mayor Giuliani and Borough President Golden, Giuliani formally authorized $65 million in city funding for the park (a substantial increase from his earlier commitment of $50 million) in his annual State of the City Address. The mayor’s announcement followed awkwardly on the heels of a similar announcement by Governor George Pataki, who authorized $85 million of Port Authority money for the construction of the park in his State of the State Address two days earlier. “The transformation of the downtown Brooklyn waterfront from an obsolete maritime area into a vibrant community asset begins today,” said Pataki. “All New Yorkers deserve world-class waterfront parks. Today, we embark on the revival of the Brooklyn waterfront for the twenty-first century.”24
According to reports from local media at the time, Pataki’s conspicuous failure in his address to credit Giuliani for his earlier commitment to the project was deliberately intended to embarrass the mayor, who had angered the governor by publicly criticizing the Port Authority’s delays in clearing snow from Kennedy International Airport following a storm the previous week.25
State Senator Martin Connor recalls a series of conversations before the State of the State Address with Pataki and his staff that resulted in the governor’s pledge to support the park. “I said, ‘You know, a little birdie told me that Rudy Giuliani in the State of the City Address next Monday morning is leading off with Brooklyn Bridge Park,’ ” Connor informed Pataki in a telephone conversation at the end of the week before Giuliani’s planned announcement, “ ‘about how he’s building Brooklyn Bridge Park and how the city did this little playground on city-owned land. The visuals have already been prepared.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I know about it!’ And I said, ‘Governor, you control 95 percent of the land involved here and the piers. That’s yours. But you’re going to end up building the park, and Rudy’s going to proclaim it the Rudy Giuliani Brooklyn Bridge Park.’ And he said, ‘No, he’s not! I’ll get back to you!’ And he hung up.”26
That evening, Connor met privately with Pataki’s chief counsel, James McGuire, and chief of staff, Brad Race, at Justin’s on Lark, a popular Albany restaurant frequented by members of the New York State Assembly and the governor’s staff. “It was around 9:30 that night, and I’d gone out to get a beer and something to eat. In comes Jim McGuire and then Brad Race, and Brad says, ‘Hey, Marty. What’s up with this park and the governor? You’ve got him barking orders at everyone. He’s going to do this park! It’s going to happen!’ ”27
The following morning, Connor met with the governor’s communications director, Zenia Mucha, to iron out some additional details about the park, and the following week, the decision was announced. “That Thursday, they had the press releases circulated,” Connor recalls, “and it dropped Friday morning. I still have the press release. And it said, ‘The state’s giving all the land with the Port Authority. And there’ll be $85 million. And basically the state’s going to build this park.’ ”28
ALTHOUGH THE STATE AND CITY FUNDING would not be official
ly authorized until December 30, 2003, and February 24, 2004, respectively, the combined commitments by Governor Pataki, Mayor Giuliani, and Borough President Golden virtually ensured that Brooklyn Bridge Park would be constructed. The leaders of the park movement were understandably ecstatic in their response to Pataki’s long-anticipated announcement.
“Finally!” said Koval in response to a New York Times reporter. “People coming over the Brooklyn Bridge into Brooklyn will have something beautiful to look down onto instead of abandoned piers and parking lots.”
“The commitment of money from the governor makes this entire project real,” echoed Joanne Witty in the same article.29
Even among members of the anti-park movement, Pataki’s decision was seen as significant. “It validates what we still believe is a flawed plan for the waterfront,” acknowledged Donald Rattner of the Waterfront Development Watch.30
Not to be upstaged by Pataki, Giuliani proclaimed in his State of the City Address on January 8 that the city would immediately begin the conversion of the Main Street parking lot in the inter-bridge area into parkland and link it to Empire–Fulton Ferry State Park “to create an uninterrupted expanse of parkland between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.”31
ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, the future of Brooklyn Bridge Park—and of New York City—suddenly became uncertain with the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, just opposite the Brooklyn Heights Promenade across the East River. In the wake of the disaster, Mayor Giuliani and the city’s other elected officials were faced with far more immediate concerns than the funding and construction of a public park.
Koval’s first reaction was that the city and state governments would be forced to abandon their commitment to the park as the mayor and the governor turned their attention and directed their financial appropriations to more urgent needs, but a call from board member Mark Baker quickly convinced her of the importance of the waterfront in the city’s recovery.