Brooklyn Prez Announces Funding For 11 Borough Parks

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN — Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on Wednesday pledged $7.7 million in capital funds to 11 green spaces throughout the borough.

Adams made the announcement at Harold Ickes Playground in Red Hook, which will get a million dollars to turn the neglected concrete space into a BMX bike and skate park along with a community space.

"Green and recreational spaces are the great equalizer," Adams said Wednesday. "It doesn’t matter your ethnicity or your economic status or your employment or immigration status. Grass does not look for your status when it allows you to enjoy and relax with your family. It allows us to leave the sterilized environments of our safe spaces and homes and come out and cross-pollinate with other communities and build stronger communities."

Here's a list of parks getting money for the 2018 fiscal year:

• Harold Ickes Playground, Red Hook - $1 million
• Fort Greene Park, Fort Greene - $1 million
• Brooklyn Bridge Park, Downtown Brooklyn - $1.5 million
• Prospect Park - $1 million
• Shirley Chisolm Community Center in Tilden Playground, East Flatbush - $1 million
• Bildersee Playgrounds, Flatlands - $1 million
• Wingate Park, East Flatbush - $500,000
• Bridge Plaza Community Garden, Downtown Brooklyn - $250,000
• Paerdegat Park, East Flatbush - $250,000
• Thomas J. Cuite Park, Windsor Terrace - $100,000
• Tree plantings along Rogers Avenue, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens - $100,000

The money at Prospect Park will go toward renovation of its southern perimeter, along Parkside Avenue in Ditmas Park.

The money at Brooklyn Bridge Park will help create two additional acres of park land that will run in Dumbo through the area's southern piers. The park space will also host cultural markets, ice skating and other year-round activity.

Photo by Marc Torrence, Patch