City Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr. (D-Bedford-Stuyvesant, Northern Crown Heights) Mayor Bill de Blasio, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and State Sen. Martin Dilan today broke ground on a new community center at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)’s Marcy Houses in Bedford Stuyvesant.
The community center is the culmination of decades of advocacy by tenants and efforts on the part of Cornegy to secure the funding necessary to bring the project to fruition. The center will be located in what remains of a vacant police station at the corner of Marcy Avenue and Ellery Street, and the renovation and conversion of the site is being funded by $7 million in City capital funds.
In April 2015, Cornegy approached NYCHA officials about the possibility of creating a dedicated gathering space for the community at Marcy Houses. After scoping the vacant police station as a good location, the lawmaker allocated $5 million dollars over the course of two budget cycles in 2015-16, and Adams kicked in an additional $1 million in capital funds from his office.
De Blasio allocated the final $1 million needed to fund the creation of this new community center.
The Marcy Houses Community Center will be the first of its kind in the housing development in more than 20 years and will be a welcome addition in the 27-building facility that houses more than 4,000 residents.
This is a great day for the over 4,000 residents who call the Marcy Houses home,” said Cornegy. “It represents the culmination of over 20 years of advocacy by tenants like the late Rena Ruffin and Sarah Hill who knew the importance of having a community center dedicated to programming for seniors, youth, and other residents to improving the quality of life here. Thanks to their leadership, and the assistance of Mayor de Blasio and Borough President Adams, this long-awaited project is finally becoming a reality.”
“Our Marcy Houses community will finally have a center of its own to call home,” said Adams. “Community centers are vital to creating safer places for raising healthy children and families, and nothing can be more fundamental to the future of this historic public housing development than that mission. I am proud to partner with Council Member Cornegy and Mayor de Blasio on funding this new community center that will serve thousands of our neighbors in Bed-Stuy for years to come.”
