Salt on the Wound
BROOKLYN SKATING RINK PUT ON ICE
DOT PLAN MEANS MAJOR DELAYS FOR PROJECT
By RICH CALDER
August 14, 2008
A much-anticipated ice-skating rink planned for under the Brooklyn Bridge is on hold indefinitely because the city Department of Transportation plans to use the prime real estate for storage, officials confirmed yesterday.
The 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park project now under construction calls for using this one acre of land under the bridge seasonally for an ice-skating rink in the winter and a public market or plaza during warmer weather.
But a DOT spokesman said the property can’t be turned over as parkland until at least five years of bridge rehabilitation work is done first. Besides needing the site for storage during the bridge job, he said there will be sandblasting and painting done under the span and that the public should be nowhere near the area during this time.
The former Purchase Building tract is DOT-owned, and was last used as a temporary home to the Office of Emergency Management, but DOT is supposed to give it up for the new waterfront park in DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights.
The old building, a 1930s-era Art Deco structure that local preservationists tried to save, was demolished last month to make way for the long-awaited park.
Sources said DOT and the city-state Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. fought internally over the land, with DOT ultimately winning out.
This was described to us by a senior Parks Official as being the “money shot” of the Park. We don’t think this was what was meant. A more serious question is: why was there no coordination between the different city agencies about the disposition of this land? A fast search discovers this article from 2005 which talks about the need for maintenance of NYC’s bridges and even roughs out their proposed maintence schedules. It looks like a good and sensible plan – and one that should not have been a surprise to anyone paying attention (like, say, people planning a park underneath the bridge). As the saying goes, you reap what you sow….and the products of destruction shall be ashes (or sand-blasting, as the case may be).