Bushwick Inlet Park Gathers Community Input

The long aborning Bushwick Inlet Park got a boost last night, as the city parks department, in collaboration with the Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, hosted a community input meeting for the next proposed parcel up for development.

Known as “50 Kent,” this patch of future parkland has drawn attention of late as a 1.8 acre lush green lawn along Kent street roughly opposite North 11th. Officially known as “50 Kent Pop-up Park,” this parcel is now open on weekends, weather permitting, and will play host to a score of events throughout the summer. A full schedule may be found on Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park’s website, and the parcel is seen in context below.

Representing one small piece of what will ultimatey be the 28-acre Bushwick Inlet Park (BIP), this grassy parcel is newly slated for development by the city, with Mayor De Blasio having dedicated $7.7 Million in buildout funds last October. These funds, together with an additional $9.8 Million for remediation at the nearby Motiva parcel immediately surrounding the inlet, represent the latest in the DiBlasio administration's steady, if piecemeal, funding of BIP.

The 50 Kent parcel now enters the protracted process of visioning, design, and buildout. The design phase alone is expected to take up to 18 months to finalize, unveiling a completed design to the public in Spring 2019.

COLLECTIVE CONTRIBUTIONS

Brooklyn parks commissioner Marty Maher opened the visioning meeting with a brief recap of how we got here, and a reminder of the park’s master plan, to which this parcel must adhere. “This plan was formed a good while ago now,” he said, “so part of the purpose of this meeting is in part to refresh that conceptual plan, and see what the community wants now.”

In addition to those community wants, the parcel’s design must br updated to reflect the realities of rising seas and plan for resiliency and inevitable flooding. Cleanly accepting the realities of climate change, Mr. Maher shared the city’s floodplain maps on which such design is based. In a sobering image, the city’s 2050 limits for a 100 year flood would render Greenpoint almost an island:

Facilitators from the parks department then broke the 50-odd attendees down into groups, and convened a roundtable in which features, uses, and principles were offered. With a mix of urban design enthusiasts, neighborhood activists, and the assorted curious, the process of this brainstorm yielded some choice ideas for how the park parcel might be developed. These ideas were summarily written up for all to consider.

Facilitators then offered up the “green sticker of approval” to be wielded by the collected attendees, and branded upon the collected ideas, thereby establishing leaders and laggards. Some keenly sought features: A forest, topography, and a ‘Naturalistic stream." One recent forestry graduate from Cornell named Lucas even suggested a "teaching forest" replete with "a cucumber tree," which is not what you think it is.

The Brooklyn Parks Department will now collect and record these suggestions, and deliver them to the parks designer, who will endeavor to incorporate them into the designing process. And voila! 29 - 43 months later (Oy vey!), North Brooklyn will open its new park.

And thus concluded the Public Visioning Session for the 50 Kent parcel of Bushwick Inlet Park. And if you missed it, no worries: Commissioner Maher offered up an easy way to send suggestions by email:

Thanks to the City and to Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park for making this happen. If you’re interested in this and other events like it, sign up for their newsletter on their website.

Over and Out.