My predictions for this one seem to be coming true...
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categor...id=10&id=31585
Astonished by a Tour of Brooklyn Bridge Park
by Dennis Holt
10-28-2009
It would have been tempting to stand there last week and imagine Julie Andrews singing something like “The hills of Brooklyn are alive with music...,” but it was only later that I thought of that inanity.
But there is nothing inane about the hill I was on. It might turn out to be the grandest surprise of many being built and planned for Brooklyn Bridge Park.
It is 22 feet high, about in the middle of Pier 1, and a few weeks ago neither I nor anyone else could have been standing on it. And on the hill are granite stones that were part of a bridge from Queens to Roosevelt Island, shaped in the form of an amphitheater.
In fact,
the new park will contain, if an early tour is any indication, a bunch of surprises. The first, universally noted, is the size of the space of the park. One is not prepared for the scope of this area, and it is not hyperbole to predict it will be one of the most fabulous parks in the world.
A 22-foot hill hardly sounds imposing, but this one seems far taller than its not quite eight yards. Everything is so flat around it that it seems to rise against the sky; the East River rips by you, not that far away, and there is a sense of grandeur about the whole thing.
When one looks intently at renderings of a planned park, such as this one, one can get a feeling of what to expect, but seeing the actual product is quite another experience.
One will see some of the finished product at Christmas time and in the spring. Piers 1, 5 and 6 should be largely completed by then — Pier 1 by itself would make a sizable waterfront park. Then funding decisions and work schedules will have to be made by governments for the other piers.
Another surprise, at least for those who have been around awhile, is in the pregnant stage. Few people ever “see” anymore the blockish former Cold Storage warehouses bordering Furman Street because they’ve been there so long. They won’t be for much longer.
The dismantling has begun, a very slow process because much of the wood and some of the bricks will be re-used in other parts of the park. But when the Cold Storage structures are gone, one standing on Furman will be able to see things no living person has ever seen.
(The “recycling” of old materials for the new park is the brainchild of Regina Myer, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, the group building the park. She noted, during last week’s tour, that even some of the support steel for the former Pier 6 shed will be re-used somewhere in the park.)
A preview of Pier 6 at the foot of Atlantic Avenue hinted at what’s in store for the kids when that pier is completed. The new playground at the foot of Main Street in DUMBO, the other end of the park, is a grand place for kids, but cannot match what is being built at Pier 6.
Looking at some wooden barricades, Myer said they will form the largest “sand box” in Brooklyn. Part of that sand is at the foot of two of the longest slides I have ever seen. (I can see photographers perched on top taking pictures from the heights of these slides. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if, in time, more pictures are taken from various places in the park than from any other place in Brooklyn.)
Alongside the inlet separating Pier 6 from Pier 7 will be sets of swings in what one visitor has already said will be called Swing Valley.v One can foresee the need for park boats to ferry people from Pier 6 to the cove near Main Street in DUMBO, where Jane’s Carousel will be located. Pier 6 will also house one of the Water Taxi stations in the park.
Well, it’s coming, parts are already here, and there are a lot of people who witnessed the slow and ponderous progress of park planning who never thought it would ever come into existence.
See you on the hill.