Fort Greene Lawmakers City Council Member Laurie Cumbo, Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Assemblyman Walter T. Mosley last night agreed with Community Board 2 and more than 50 protesters to table until the Fall slated renovations to Fort Greene Park.
The project will focus on revamping the Myrtle Avenue side of the park including rebuilding basketball courts, barbecuing stations, seating, lighting, pavement and drainage systems. The plan also calls for repaving Myrtle Avenue’s sidewalks adjacent to the park and revamping the small oval entrance at Washington Park on the northeast corner, as well as adding visibility to the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument and creating a wading fountain.
The 18-month, $10.5 million dollar project in recent weeks has received tense push back from the local community, who believe the city’s Parks Department and other individuals have purposely left public housing residents out of the final project discussions. This includes allegations of holding “secret meetings” in order to get the project approved at rapid speed.
Two New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) complexes – the Ingersoll and the Walt Whitman Houses – border the park on the Myrtle Avenue side.
“I believe that we can come together as a community so that we can all feel proud about the project at the end of the day. So it’s not just a level of this was just something that was shoved down our throats. We didn’t want it this way. I want everyone’s voice to be a part of it,” said Cumbo.
But Brooklyn Parks Department Commissioner Martin Maher, was quick to point out that a delay in the project would create a “domino effect” when it came to increasing costs and growing expenses. Cumbo alongside Montgomery and Mosley who all committed to the postponement were quick to point out to Maher, that waiting a couple of months until a final redesign was posed to the community would not affect funding to the project.
“This is not an issue if we hold off for a month or so. I don’t believe that inflation is going to eat up that much of the capital money available for the project. We are committed and we don’t believe that that is a problem,” said Montgomery.
The renovations are part of the citywide Parks Without Borders initiative, a $40 million project that aims to make eight city parks more accessible, including Prospect and Jackie Robinson parks in Brooklyn, Van Cortlandt and Virginia parks in the Bronx, Seward Park in Manhattan, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens and Faber Park in Staten Island.
“I just saw the flyer to tonight’s meeting before coming here. The two prior meetings were hush-hush, no one who lives in NYCHA knew about them. One of the meetings was during our TA (Tenant Association) meeting,. An elected official came over to tell us about a meeting regarding the parks and we went right over,” said Pamela Harris, a resident of the Whitman Houses.
According to Maher, this project has had the most “community input” in his 18-year career, with an extensive planning period of three years before initial redesigns were even started. Maher went on to note that this was the third meeting for the project with the previous meetings also having public input included.
“Fort Greene Park has been and will continue to be a financial priority to me. We want to see the right thing happen with those capital resources. We have to take a step back and try and bring everyone together. A couple of months, it’s going to be okay,” said Cumbo.
