BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
The last section of Brooklyn
Bridge Park offi cially
opened on Thursday as offi -
cials cut the ribbon on Emily
Warren Roebling Plaza, just
beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.
“This opening marks the
completion of Brooklyn Bridge
Park as originally designed,”
said Eric Landau, president
of the Brooklyn Bridge Park
Corporation. “As you probably
know, we broke ground on
the fi rst section of the park in
2008, opening it in 2010. Since
then, we’ve been working toward
the complete transformation
of a former industrial
waterfront into one of New
York City’s most beloved public
parks.”
The $8 million, two-acre
plaza connects the Dumbo
portion of the park, including
Jane’s Carousel, to the park’s
piers, and brings new green
spaces, benches, and a wide
asphalt-and-paver plaza to the
formerly fenced-off construction
site.
“One of the things that the
Brooklyn Bridge Park has really
shown us is you can get
things done on time, on budget,
and many times, even
faster than on time,” said
Vicki Been, deputy mayor of
housing and economic development.
COURIER LIFE, D 6 ECEMBER 17-23, 2021
“It has been just an
incredible honor to work with
so many people who have come
together to make this park a
reality, and to really showing
what this fi nancing model and
this model of partnership can
do.”
The city’s Landmarks Preservation
Committee approved
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s proposal
The new plaza under the Brooklyn Bridge. Photo by Alexa Hoyer
to revitalize the space in
May 2020. Construction began
six months later, with the goal
of completing and opening the
plaza a year later, in Dec. 2021,
and the project was completed
right on time.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said
the park’s completion was
many years — and fi ghts — in
the making.
“Eighty-fi ve acres for the
people of New York City, that’s
a beautiful, beautiful thing,”
he said. “And you’d think something
like more green space
for kids and families would be
a unifying reality. But some of
us were around 15 years ago,
20 years ago, when in fact this
was a controversy.”
“Now, I love my borough,
and I love my city, but we do
manage to come up with a controversy
for every occasion,”
the outgoing mayor joked.
“Even when it comes to creating
a park out of a swath of
land that no one could go into
and enjoy.”
At the groundbreaking last
year, Landau announced the
company’s decision to name
the square after engineer
Emily Warren Roebling, who
spearheaded the construction
of the Brooklyn Bridge after
her husband, chief engineer
Washington Roebling, fell ill
and became bedridden.
Local preservationists
advocated for years to memorialize
Roebling, saying
the project’s original name
— Brooklyn Bridge Plaza
— “seemed to demean and
diminish the site’s signifi -
cance.”
Now open!
Brooklyn Bridge Park now
completed with opening of
Emily Warren Roebling Plaza
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