Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 1 Open
On March 22, a crowd of politicians, designers and advocates gathered at Pier 1 in Brooklyn to celebrate the opening of the first phase of the new Brooklyn Bridge Park. Nearly six years in the making, this park marks the beginning of massive change for the Brooklyn waterfront.
At first glance, Brooklyn Bridge Park is another beautiful addition to New York’s ever improving coastline. When one digs a little deeper (no pun intended) the park is possibly New York’s most environmentally sensitive project to date.
The highlights of the project include the careful and systematic disassembling of the former Cold Storage Warehouses that are at the east edge of the park. Wood beams from the building have been re-milled and used to build the park benches and cladding for small service buildings. The fill for the massive 20 foot tall landforms was obtained from the MTA’s east side access tunneling process just a few miles upriver from the site. Also recycled is the granite, from the dismantled Roosevelt Island Bridge, which used in a massive staircase that leads down from the park’s highest point and in the parks accessible tidal wetland.
The park uses a sophisticated stormwater management system to capture and store enough water to meet 70% of the irrigation needs for the park. Along the shore the designers worked to create bird and fish habitat in a manner that makes the habitat and associated creatures visible but not in harms way. A last fun fact in the list of innovative approaches in this park are the two sheep dogs that the park has employed to chase the Canadian geese off the lawns. See photos of the park and learn about their extensive list of sustainable approaches on their website : http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/