Maker Park Proposal Highlights Tensions Between Old and New Williamsburg

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — Tensions between old and new Williamsburg and Greenpoint have never been clearer than in the fight over what to do with Bushwick Inlet Park.

For ten years, several community residents fought tooth and nail to get the 27-acre park that was promised to them by the city in 2005.

After the city finally purchased the park from CitiStorage a few weeks ago and those residents rejoiced, a group of talented urban planners, architects, environmental lawyers, and designers felt it was time to propose their idea for seven acres of the park, called Maker Park.

On Tuesday night, the Maker Park group threw a hip proposal party in the privately owned Dobbin Street loft in the heart of industrial Greenpoint. Dozens of people schmoozed to free wine and Van Leeuwen ice cream while they looked at massive digital renderings of the Maker Park plans to repurpose the park's old oil refinery.

A workshop where attendees could tinker with a model of the oil refinery site was planted in the middle of the loft. A virtual reality booth allowed people to walk and feel their way around the proposed Maker Park. A computer-camera-hybrid booth let people take gifs of themselves with "Maker Park" written in the corner and share them on social media.

Maker Park's plan involves turning the seven-acre site within Bushwick Inlet Park that used to be the Bayside Oil Depot into a new site in which the 50-ft-tall oil tanks (of which there are 10) would be reused as a theater, a green space, community classes, and other performances and activities.

Here were some of the preliminary renderings on the wall:

Under the plan the community agreed on with the NYC Parks Department, the space that Maker Park wants to use would be more open green space with a beach and planted terraces. Here is the NYC Parks Department plan put together after input from community members.

Dozens of people who we'll call "old-timers" — people who have lived in the neighborhood for decades — showed up to the proposal party to express their opposition to the project. They didn't voice their opinions during the presentation for the whole crowd, but they were a distinctly tense presence at the event.

Maker Park members seemed to be highly conscious of the angry residents in the crowd.

"We want to make it clear and understood that we recognize and really honor the battle that you have won to get this park," Stacey Anderson, one of the minds behind Maker Park, said to the members of the crowd who were involved in the fight for Bushwick Inlet Park. "We are suggesting that people come together and give their ideas for the site. This is our idea."

"These are just bare sketches that we've hardly started, and what we really need is your input, said Jay Valgora, an architect of Maker Park, said to the audience. "Tonight is really just a start to that. Every new idea that's come to us we've integrated."

"A comprehensive masterplan was created 10 years ago, as we believe in revisiting these plans and engaging in an inclusive conversation with the neighborhood, as it exists today," a flier at the Maker Park event said.

Maker Park members said they want to bring the park's plan up-to-date. "The original plan for the park was made before the iPhone was invented, just to put things into perspective," Zachary Waldman, a political organizer for Maker Park, told Patch.

But the old-timers are furious that no one in Maker Park helped in the fight for the park, and Maker Park is now swooping in to reap the benefits.

"...neither Waldman, nor any of the other people associated with 'Maker Park' did any work to support the community or to even advance acquiring the CitiStorage property," Adam Perlmutter, a Williamsburg attorney who is a member of Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park and chairman of the Open Space Alliance, which advocates for green space in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, wrote in a public Facebook post.

"There was a really robust and diverse turnout, that included those who are huge fans of Maker Park, those who were intrigued and eager to learn more, and skeptics who want the opportunity to voice their opinion," Anderson wrote in an email to Patch. "I think the event incited some productive and interesting conversations, which I think made it a success. That said, this is just the beginning of those conversations, and we're enthusiastic to become more engaged at the community-level in development of our idea."

To see its plan realized, Maker Park has to obtain several approvals from city agencies and reach fundraising goals. It also has to get the community old-timers to warm up to it, which is proving to be a difficult task. Here was a long-time resident's answer to Maker Park's request for input:

Photo credit: Sarah Kaufman/Patch