http://www.nypost.com/p/brooklyn_bri...sKay1dnTONph0L
Brooklyn Bridge Park finally set to open
December 17, 2009
By RICH CALDER
It’s taken so long to get off the ground that weary residents predicted it’d be a cold day in hell before they saw a Brooklyn Bridge Park.
They’ll have to settle for a freezing day in winter.
After more than two decades of planning, the first piece of the massive park planned along the Brooklyn Heights waterfront will finally open next month, officials announced today.
The small piece of what will be an 85-acre recreational and condominium development is located at Pier 1 off Fulton Landing and will feature grassy hills and an esplanade overlooking the East River and harbor.
Meanwhile, Empire-Fulton Ferry Park in DUMBO will be officially absorbed into the long-delayed park project beginning January 1, with the state turning control of the popular green space over to the state-city Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp.
Although Empire-Fulton Ferry will keep its name temporarily, it will undergo major changes next year.
Jane Walentas, the wife of DUMBO developer David Walentas, is donating a 1920s carousel she restored. It will be housed in a glass pavilion designed by architect Jean Nouvel off the western shore of the park’s cove in front of the Tobacco Warehouse.
Jane Walentas is also donating $3.45 million for landscaping and other improvements in the park that include lighting to allow the tourist hotspot to remain open well past its current dusk closing time, extending the hours to 1 a.m., said project director Jennifer Klein.
Walentas would operate the ride through a nonprofit "Friends of Jane’s Carousel," and any profits from concessions would go towards park maintenance, Klein added. BBPDC board members would set prices and said they want to make it "affordable."
The upgrades at Empire-Fulton Ferry will begin in January and force parts of it to temporarily close.
But
another portion of Brooklyn Bridge Park, at its southern edge by Atlantic Avenue, is set to open in the spring and feature a large playground, dog run, a 1,000-square-foot restaurant and roof deck, and three beach volleyball courts.
Also in the spring, the Pier 1 portion of the park will get food concessions.
The park is being built piecemeal because there is a more than $100 million funding gap in its $350 million budget. The city has offered to close $55 million of the shortfall in exchange for full control of the park, but the state is mum on whether it will accept the offer.
Brooklyn Bridge Park has been a political hot potato since project planners announced in December 2004 that more than 1,200 luxury condos would have to be included to raise enough money to offset the park's now-estimated $16.1 million annual maintenance costs.
Only one high-rise offering 440 luxury units has been built; another 780 units are on hold because of the slumping economy.