Brooklyn Heights Promenade

The Daily Plant : Thursday, November 9, 2000

COMMISSIONER DIGS IN

COMMISSIONER DIGS IN

The Brooklyn Heights Promenade is both an attraction for sight-seers and a backyard for people who live and work in the Heights. Yesterday Commissioner Henry J. (StarQuest) Stern, City Council member Kenneth K. (Rising Star) Fisher, Brooklyn Borough Commissioner Julius (Mirror) Spiegel, and Brooklyn Borough Historian, John (Coney) Manbeck broke ground at the Promenade and signaled the start of construction and repair, each element of which will highlight the manifold uses of the Promenade.

When construction is finished, rainwater should drain properly, protecting the blue stone from erosion and the hex blocks from buckling. After drainage and irrigation are addressed, new benches, new lighting and fences will be added. Parks will install bike racks and drinking fountains along the walkway, and add topsoil and plantings to the green areas. A north compass rosette and new signs will inform visitors about the Promenade. The artistic jewel of the renovations will appear on the fence, a silhouette of the skyline as it appeared to viewers in the 1950s, will make visible the stages of history that comingle there.

Local coalitions of citizens were instrumental in catalyzing these renovations. The Brooklyn Heights Association, Brooklyn Heights Playground Committee, Montague Street District Management Association, and Community Board 2 organized dedicated park goers to advocate for the public spaces they treasure. The reciprocity between local and municipal efforts serves the city's green spaces well. The proof is in the Promenaders.

The history of the promenade is a history of creative community solutions to problems posed by development. Many of you may know the story: in 1941 Robert Moses and the New York City Planning Commissioner proposed the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway right through the middle of Brooklyn Heights. It was a resident who suggested the building of a double-decker highway with garden space. Fifty years ago, on October 7, 1950, Moses dedicated the public promenade saying "I don't know of anything quite like this in any city in the world." The Promenade as an idea and as a space remains unique among city parks.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Readers, I know of no plant that blooms daily (night-flowering lotuses?) but this one. Please help me make it useful and interesting to read by telling me what you're up to. If you have a story idea, a photo or a critique, you can alert me by e mail or phone. Great programs taking place, new initiatives, interesting trends are all the stuff of readable Plants. If you're interested in writing a story, I am also happy to accept submissions. Daily is a lot of flowering per week and I'd like to ensure that each bloom is useful to Parks. Thanks for staying in touch, Julia Schaffer, Editor: (212) 360-1371

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE PLANT
(Thursday, November 12, 1987)

BENEPE NAMED DIRECTOR OF ART & ANTIQUITIES; MATSIL TO HEAD NATURAL RESOURCES GROUP; BRADDICK NEW DIRECTOR OF URBAN PARK RANGERS

Commissioner Stern today named directors of Art and Antiquities, the Natural Resources Group (NRG), and the Urban Park Rangers. Adrian Benepe, former Director of NRG, has been appointed Director of Art and Antiquities. In this new capacity, Benepe will supervise management of Parks' 14 historic houses, curate exhibitions of public art in parks and in the Arsenal Gallery and explore techniques of monument preservation with Curator of Parks Donald M. Reynolds.

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"Let observation with extensive view survey mankind from China to Peru."

Samuel Johnson 1709-1784