'Beloved' Fort Greene Open Street Briefly Closed Over City Mishap

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — Mike Lydon's 4-year-old often walks (or scooters or bikes) in the middle of an eight-block stretch of Willoughby Avenue, one of the city's few permanent Open Streets that's primarily reserved for pedestrians and bikes.

On Thursday afternoon though, a "miscommunication" (seemingly at the highest departmental level of city office) rendered that option impossible when the Department of Transportation, without notice, started removing the barricades, planters, and do-not-enter signs.

"What we heard from [the DOT] is that the Commissioner came to them and said we're closing down Willoughby based on 'local concern,'" Lydon told Patch of a meeting that he and other members of the Fort Greene Open Streets Coalition had with the DOT on Thursday after the agency had already begun dismantling the street.

Several hours later — when the controversy had already incited neighborhood outrage online — the city's transportation agency reneged on its actions.

"Barriers were temporarily moved from the Willoughby Open Street due to a miscommunication. We will restore the Open Street barriers this evening," the agency said in a public statement on Thursday night.

This point was reiterated on Friday by Mayor Eric Adams, who did not explicitly explain what prompted the miscommunication, but said that he restored the Open Street immediately after hearing about the controversy.

"I called the commissioner, I stated 'is this something my Councilwoman wants?' and once I was told 'no' I was very clear: Put that street back," he said.

Lydon, who's worked in New York City urban planning for over a decade (often closely with the DOT), isn't entirely convinced by the argument that this was an "internal snafu" (as someone from the Mayor's office reportedly told him).

"If this is a miscommunication it's a massive one and not a common one," said Lydon, noting that while this could just be a slip-up amid a new administration it still strikes him as "very odd" since the DOT made infrastructure investments in the Willoughby Avenue Open Street and (until recently) had a "collegial relationship" with organizers.

"These are professionals, at the Department of Transportation, and it's very strange and unnecessary [to] stir up all this controversy for no reason," he said.

Others agree with his skepticism.

A source at the DOT told Streetsblog that the street was temporarily closed since one of Eric Adams' buddies "didn't like it." (The Mayor, who has come under fire for accusations of nepotism, said on Friday he did not know about the street closure before it happened.)

Another neighbor claimed that the street was closed at the behest of complaints from officers in the 88th Precinct. The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment on the claim, though.

Short of its official public statement, the DOT did not answer Patch's questions as to what caused the agency to disassemble the Open Street in the first place.

By Thursday evening the barricades, planters, and do-not-enter signs were all back in place, making room for the usual slate of dog walkers, joggers, and neighbors to wander through the corridor.

Lydon was pleased to see the amenity restored, and hopes that it only continues to grow in the future.

"We want to see it continually improved moving forward," he said of himself and other neighbors, who are looking forward to using the street as the weather gets warmer. "The street is beloved," he said.