Clark Street subway station
will reopen in April
The Clark Street station in Brooklyn Heights. Photo by Ben Verde
COURIER LIFE, MARCH 4-10, 2022 23
The Clark Street subway
stop will reopen for full service
in April — which should
help boost its mom and pop
businesses, who have been
suffering from the lack of foot
traffi c — the MTA recently
told the Brooklyn Heights Association.
Nurturing local
retail has been a focus of the
venerable neighborhood organization,
which just surveyed
pedestrians on Montague
Street and is mulling whether
closing the thoroughfare to
cars could help revitalize it.
“Our goal is to create a
pedestrian-friendly zone
to encourage people to linger
and shop so our existing
businesses will fl ourish and
new businesses will fi ll the
empty spots,” said BHA President
Erika Belsey Worth at
the group’s annual meeting
Thursday, February 24.
Speaking of traffi c, the
nonprofi t continues to push
government to address the
failing BQE cantilever before
disaster strikes. “The 20 years
DOT says we’ve gained will be
over in a blink of the eye,” said
Belsey Worth. “Our current
goals include keeping city
and state eyes on the BQE.”
The group applauds recent
efforts to reduce traffi c on the
strained roadway. “Reducing
lanes from three to two was a
very bold use of paint,” Belsey
Worth said, referring to one
of the new measures. On the
plus side, traffi c reduction
has not increased traffi c on
surrounding surface streets,
as had been feared, and the
crash rate has plummeted,
she said.
Whatever solution is
found, the BHA’s priorities include
eliminating vibrations,
noise and pollution and maintaining
the Brooklyn Heights
Promenade and existing entrances
to Brooklyn Bridge
Park, she said. Founded in
1910, the infl uential group’s
many accomplishments include
preserving the neighborhood,
stopping highways
and creating parks.
Considering Covid challenges,
the group held a remarkable
number of events in
2021, including a fundraising
party on the Promenade that
preservationist Otis Pearsall
and other Brooklyn luminaries
attended. BHA plans
to make its spring neighborhood
cleanup an annual event
and to expand its new and
popular walking tours.
After skipping its biennial
show house fundraiser in
2021 “for obvious reasons,” as
Belsey Worth put it, BHA will
hold its third one later this
year; more details are coming
soon. Despite postponing the
show house, the group netted
$56,000 and has assets of more
than $722,000 for the past fi scal
year, said BHA Executive
Director Lara Birnback.
The group’s annual service
awards went to the founders
of the Brooklyn Heights
Community Fridge and to
Amerika Williamson for organizing
the annual holiday
tree lighting on the Brooklyn
Heights Promenade.
The focus of this year’s
meeting was a conversation
with two experts about climate
change and what to do
about it.
“The battle to contain
greenhouse gases was lost
in the ’90s,” and climate
change is already here, said
author, consultant and climate
change expert Eugene
Linden. Emissions are 63 percent
higher than they were
some 30-plus years ago when
the issue became public. In
large part, that’s because the
U.S. encouraged developing
countries China and India to
embrace coal. “The result is
China’s emissions dwarf anyone
else’s. India is third in
emissions,” he said. “Everyone
signed on to reduce emissions
but everyone’s efforts
were muted by emissions
from China.”
While the public thinks
climate change is far off, “it’s
become quite clear since the
’90s that climate change is
here. Each decade has been
warmer than the last and
they’re all setting records,”
he continued. Weather-related
disasters in the last decade
cost $3 trillion.
“The perverse incentives
prevail everywhere; there
is enormous momentum to
business as usual,” he said.
Although “the hour is very
late,” every nation on earth
has to lower emissions, and
“every nation can.”
Linden proposes a universal
tariff that would apply
globally to lower emissions
at least 3 percent a year. In
the U.S., businesses are starting
to realize it’s in their interest
to reduce emissions
and “they are going to have
to take the lead” because
they “have the megaphone
and control our politics,” he
said.
Nonetheless, said fellow
speaker and environmental
journalist Leslie Kaufman,
urgent action is needed from
the government because “until
the government puts on a
carbon tax or tariff, we move
too slowly or ineffectively.”
At home, individuals can
help make a difference by
boycotting products from
bad actors, taking public
transportation and not fl ying,
and New York City can
likely be powered entirely by
renewable energy sources,
they said.
If you want to watch the
meeting yourself, a video recording
is available.