At a Carroll Gardens site beneath the Culver El (F/G) tracks that looks like a perfect locale for the rumble scene from West Side Story, City Council Member Brad Lander, Assembly member Jo Anne Simon led a host of officials in breaking ground for the renovation of St. Mary’s Park.
The $2.7 million project, a strong stone’s throw from the Gowanus Canal, will restore two adjacent playgrounds on Smith Street, between Huntington and Luquer streets. The southern half of the park will include new ADA accessible play equipment for toddlers, young children, and older children, water-play spray showers, tables and chairs, and planting beds. The northern site will feature a skating area, multi-use synthetic turf field, adult fitness equipment, basketball courts, and a walking track.
St. Mary’s Park, named for St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church on Court Street, was originally demolished in 2009 when the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) renovated the Culver Viaduct on the F/G line. The MTA promised to fund reconstruction of the parks, providing $850,000, which Council Member Lander said was far too little.
“I think we’ve learned that you can’t always take the MTA at their word about solving problems,” said Lander, raising his voice over the rumbling of trains overhead. “What we learned was that ‘fix it up again’ meant allocating 850,000 dollars, except that the cost of renovating both the playgrounds in a compelling way turned out to be about triple that.”
St. Mary’s Park, named for St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church on Court Street, was originally demolished in 2009 when the Metropolitan Transit Authority renovated the Culver Viaduct on the F/G line. The MTA promised to fund reconstruction of the parks, providing $850,000, which Council Member Lander said was far too little.
Lander allocated another $500,000 which, combined with the MTA funding, allowed for the construction of the southern half of the park. Lander also worked with Borough President Eric Adams to provide an additional $1.35 million for the creation of the northern half.
Simon praised the project, noting the ADA-accessibility.
“This is such a good way to bring together a community. It’s parks where everybody comes together,” said Simon. “What we want are more places for all our children to play, for all our neighbors to visit, and making them accessible to more people is truly visionary.”
Brooklyn Borough Parks Commissioner Martin Maher emphasized that the park is being built and planned in a resilient and sustainable way, citing strategically placed trees, recycled plastic lumber materials, and even the synthetic turf of the northern playground.
“People think ‘well it’s just plastic grass,’ but that’s not true. It absorbs a huge amount of storm water, there’s a whole drain system underneath,” said Maher, pointing to maps of the future park. “Any time we do this, we use recycled material, we try to use green architecture.”
A group of high school students from the Gowanus Green Team, a summer job training program focused on environmental issues in the area, joined the city officials in breaking ground as well.
Andrea Parker, of The Gowanus Conservancy, which began the Green Team program this summer, emphasized that St. Mary’s Park should be one of many steps towards a greener and more resilient Gowanus area.
“This is just the beginning,” said Parker, referencing the Conservancy’s “Gowanus Lowlands” vision of connecting green spaces throughout the area. “This is a critical investment to public space that we need, but we need so much more.”
In recent years, there have been many efforts to fortify and clean the Gowanus Canal area. This includes the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declaring the area a Superfund sites, which requires a long-term response to clean up hazardous material contaminations.
The Gowanus Superfund Cleanup plan is expected to finish in 2022, and the Department of City Planning (DCP) has begun the Gowanus Neighborhood Planning Study, meant to support the area financially and environmentally.
Lander argued that the park was part of an effort to secure a positive future for the Gowanus area, while keeping in mind its history.
“I feel like what we’re doing today is bridging the Gowanus past and the Gowanus future,” said Lander. “We spent 150 years polluting the Gowanus Canal, the past couple of decades neglecting it, but we are now building on the principles that are the opposite of that, that are rooted in sustainability and resiliency, and that are mixed-use so that they bring both jobs and housing.”
