BY KEVIN DUGGAN
After widespread communal
backlash, state park honchos
are overhauling their
designs for Williamsburg’s
Marsha P. Johnson State Park
— halting their colorful tribute
to the greenspace’s LGBTQ
namesake, while adding
almost four basketball courts’
worth of greenery to the waterfront
lawn on Kent Avenue.
“We’ve had really great conversations
and just really appreciate
everybody’s passion
for joining in the project and
this is your park,” State Parks
regional director for New York
City Leslie Wright told Community
Board 1’s Parks and
Waterfront Committee during
a virtual meeting May 5.
The new plans for the park
between N. Seventh and N.
Ninth streets follows widespread
outcry earlier this
year by locals and Johnson’s
family against the agency’s
original plan, which included
a large colorful mural of the
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activist splashed on one of the
two signature concrete slabs.
Residents and relatives
at the time said the Albany
agency was steamrolling its
plans in spite of local opposition,
with some Brooklynites
likening the scheme to little
more than a vanity project
for Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The agency briefl y halted
construction, before launching
a series of nine in-person
and virtual workshops
starting at the end of March
through May 3, along with
an online survey to gather
feedback on how to better the
meadow’s look.
The new Marsha P. Johnson
State Park proposal by
Manhattan landscape architects
Starr Whitehouse swaps
out the large painting for a
series of commemorative
plaques along the entrance at
N. Eighth Street and a mosaic
of a poem written by Johnson
leading to the shoreline.
Parks will add some 18,000
A rendering of the revised Marsha P. Johnson park plan. Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners
square feet of greenery by
shrinking the concrete slabs.
A slice of space known as the
Gantry Plaza, which was originally
supposed to have large
fl oral signs about the LGTBQ
rights struggle, will become
a more passive patch of grass.
The greenspace gurus will
also install naturalistic elements
like log benches along
the waterfront and plant a series
fl ower gardens around a
circular path.
The park remains under
construction and will wrap
up in June, with plans to open
up the space by the end August,
according to Wright.
Offi cials will meet with
locals again in the fall to discuss
more possible ways to
commemorate Johnson, such
as a statue or a public art work
at the entrance to the park.
Locals praised the agency
for responding to their concerns
and opening up the process
to the public.
“I want to recognize where
we started and where we are
now, it’s pretty amazing,” said
Steve Chesler.
Design change
New Marsha P. Johnson park
design has more park, no mural
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