Goodness, there's so much negativity and cynicism in these posts. I've lived in Brooklyn for 20 years, and the arrival of Brooklyn Bridge Park has been a huge addition to the community: public basketball courts, public picnic spaces, public volleyball courts, open public parkland, and even a public swimming pool coming in 2020. Do you all recall what was on the Brooklyn waterfront 20 years ago? Abandoned piers, decrepit buildings, unsafe structures.
I sense nostalgia for something that was never there. I would be happy to have acres and acres of beautifully maintained open parkland with no development, but the city evidently didn't want to pay; that's why we had such a rundown waterfront for literally decades. In my opinion, Bloomberg was a visionary... and a realist.
These are not public parks. These are the private follies of developers who want to sell condos. Where are the playing fields? The pools (NYC children are the most non-swimmers in the nation)? The year round recreational centers for field sports? While no one disputes the need for more greenery in our increasingly dystopian city of hardscape, with our very light and air consumed by inappropriate super talls, and the destruction of our historic districts and botanical gardens and our destination parks as a result, these kinds of real estate deals drive true park advocates to distraction. We are even said to be against parks by those who have destroyed the very notion of public parks! We need to get back to basics and dedicate (mandate in our city charter) that 1% of our tax dollars go to PUBLIC parks. That was the amount the city dedicated when our parks were well maintained in the '60's (but under Bloomberg it hit an all time low of .0004%). And itemize what we pay for parks, schools and libraries on our tax bills - the pillars of our democracy which everyone should be cognizant of.
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Domino's Park is fantastic but let's be real. These parks are built because the city required them as concessions for rezoning or approving plans. And most of them are not big enough or go far enough to meet the needs of the community. Keep in mind that Williamsburg was promised a large park similar to Brooklyn Bridge Park in exchange for a 2005 rezoning that brought big towers. It took 11 years and a lot of fighting (and money) to even get the land for that promised park and it is years away for realization. The towers have been there for years now though. And once built the parks are underfunded. The ferry waterfront pier area outside North 5th is in rough shape with uneven pavers and poorly maintained grass despite the condos around it sending NYC a large check every year. Building it is one thing - paying for and maintaining it is still needed.
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The park in the Hudson Yards does not make up for the MAJOR ugliness of the whole Hudson Yards development.
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It might have been worth mentioning that "typically mandated by zoning laws" usually means developers being given a height variance in return for these public amenities. And, I might add, as PUBLIC amenities, they should not restrictive, as is the large plaza adjoining World Wide Plaza, which doesn't allow dogs. In infuriates me that the developer can arbitrarily disallow dog owners & their well-behaved leashed dogs from what was granted as a "public" amenity.
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While on paper these parks are publicly open to the greater public, not just residence of the luxury housing, mushroom-blume of gentrifying NYC, I find it very hard to believe financially straddled NYers from, say the Bronx, will pay the subway fair back and forth to visit these parks.
At a time the divide between classes is growing starker by the year, the poor will likely keep to wherever is left of their space (once developers are done with it) and the wealthier class will enjoy ever greater swaths of what should be the city's civic responsibility of providing: Livable safe spaces, livable and safe streets.
Yet another example of the chipping away of an aspiring egalitarian society. Welcome to the new feudalism of the 21st Century.
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See HKGuy's comment below regarding Bronx parks.
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"the Vessel, a tall interactive sculpture . . ."
Interactive sculpture? Surely you jest. The Vessel is stairs. Stairs to nowhere. With views of condos, and from some stairs you can see part of the Hudson. Please.
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And after you've climbed the stairs, you can stuff your face in some foofoo eatery, probably reviewed in this paper within the last week, because that's all there's left to do in Manhattan. Oh, the delicious irony of all these wealthy people trying to buy themselves an vivifying New York experience while driving all the actually interesting people and places to extinction! What's left? Stairs.
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The entire waterfront, from North Williamsburg to Newtown Creek is fast becoming one unbroken wall of luxury condos. The amount of green space created or anticipated, is absolutely pathetic. Greenpoint now has Transmitter Park, pleasant enough, but already overcrowded. Once the canyon of condos surrounding it are tenanted, it will become a Grand Central Station of nannies and their $1000 strollers. There also happens to be new development right upon the park, which seeks to commandeer it as its own.
Also, please explain to me how the same developers who formed a front organization pushing for a streetcar line, with De Blasio as its stooge and Chuck Schumer's daughter as its executive officer, can argue this area is inaccessible to public transportation, yet claim these parks are open to everybody. Yes everybody!
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"A Grand Central Station of nannies and their $1000 strollers" — a telling phrase. Something I've noticed among anti-gentrification advocates & was prominent in the book based on Jeremiah's Vanishing New York is the hatred directed at infants in prams.
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My sympathies are completely with the infants, who remain hapless prisoners. They are invariably faced directly into traffic, away from their caregiver, who is busy texting or gabbing on their phone. The stroller is used as a battering ram to navigate through crowds, though in my experience, it is the parent who is most likely to perpetrate this crime because they consider that untrammeled use of the street to be one of their prerogatives. God help any pedestrian that not instantly defer to their wonderfulness.
But not in Murray Hill (Manhattan), where new construction abounds and not a park to be found. Sad...the local political leadership is so very behind the times and ignores the needs of the citizens.
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Actually, I wonder if the green spots around the entrance/exit to the Midtown tunnel could not be turned into vest pocket parks. Build a taller fence to keep people from throwing stuff onto traffic below, and take whatever other precautions, but could that land not be better utilized with people allowed on it?
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Love the quote from The Modern: " Some residents of Fort Lee may love our towers...some residents of Fort Lee may not".
I don't know about Fort Lee, but the residents of upper Manhattan hate those ugly, out of scale monstrosities that have permanently scarred the view of the beautiful George Washington Bridge and the Palisades.
Go ahead, try to "help the community" - it will not make up for the offense of building the towers in the first place.
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Amen ..... now they have the ugly lights on top... that dont even match in color
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What utter nonsense. The privatized spaces are barely public and we give the developers way too much FAR - the trade off is not worth it.
Politicians who indulge in horsetrading with developers giving height away (and sunlight and creating shadows) in exchange for these pseudo-parks are going to be voted out of office.
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Broker Ryan Serhant suggests that the very fractional greenery in the Pacific Park complex is "a huge part" of buyers' decisions at the 550 Vanderbilt condo.
The article should have mentioned a huge effective price cut that coincided with his role as broker, as the building's developers wangled a change in the 421-a tax break, as I've reported. More here: https://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2018/06/times-real-estate-secti...
A caption on a photo showing the open space at 550 Vanderbilt, with the rental building 535 Carlton in the background, says, "The space between the buildings is to become a park." Actually, the space between those two buildings is for two additional towers, with fractional open space at their edges. The main component of the planned Pacific Park open space is the demapped Pacific Street between two rows of buildings.
The article says the "park" was "supposed to be completed by 2016, according to an initial timeline for the project approved in 2005." The project was approved in 2006, and the timeline has changed several times. This would have been a good time to get the developer to suggest a completion date: a former executive recently estimated 2028.
While the articles does acknowledge that neighbors are frustrated that "the open space hasn’t been added in line with development,” this would have been a good place to contrast Pacific Park project with Battery Park City or the Domino project, where the open space came first.
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Here is a pdf of all the publicly owned private spaces in NYC as of 12-2017-
https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/2132439f-e286-479f-be11-1a499ce94666
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These parks are likely not created through altruism. Developers are more in line with Ayn Rand capitalism, even if they have never read The Fountainhead.
I'm happy to see more green but when a headline favors developers, I sense PR flacks running the story, not objective journalism.
These "parks," when in controversial developments, such as the Rudin project (good bye community-based, historic hospital that went belly up overnight, for developers to get a bargain deal in the bankruptcy court), are Community Benefit Agreements, which are bargaining chips used to get the community board on board, through elected official pressure and salesmanship.
But people like Gregory Croft are true advocates for green-space == spaces are created and operated in a democratic way, even for the poor. For all New Yorkers.
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Too many people packed in.
Too little green space.
Staten Island omittef in article on "development."
No mention of long term sustainability.
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Developments of the type mentioned in this article are prohibited on Staten Island due to limited public infrastructure particularly the road system and water/sewer network. A few moderate-sized apartment complexes have been built near the SI ferry terminal area. It has yet to be seen if those developments, like Urby, will be financially successful.
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What jumped out at me was the line, “Domino, for example, cost “tens of millions of dollars,” a figure that would have been double had the city built it.”
If this claim is a true or even partially true it should raise a big red flag!
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New Yorkers sure like to complain and nitpick. Though the surrounding buildings are out of reach financially for most people, these public/private parks are open to everyone, quite accessible and are often well used. Complainers need to look at other major US cities - most have far fewer park space and some are inconvenient (requires a car to get to).
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Sorry, Utopia, not true. These are not public spaces. Just like Zucotti park in lower Manhattan...public parks are spaces where anyone can come, can even set up a carton and protest but like what happened when protesters used Zucotti to protest Wall Street's 1 percenters, they were removed (by a SWAT team) in the wee hours of the night by Bloomberg. And nothing can be done. This is NOT a public space where communities have a real say in what happens there, or in the amenities real families need, like ball fields, pools, ice skating...this is a promenade to adorn luxe condos. It is an affront to any real park advocate.
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You don't live here. You don't know what has happened since Bloomberg started mass rezonings and de Blasio has continued very bad land-deal practices.
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Just because a park is public does not confer an unlimited right to camp out and protest there. Permits need to be granted and time limits respected. Otherwise, you have chaos.
What a pro developer article, “ come and enjoy the life of the one percent even though you could never live here “ ridiculous, overpriced restaurants and overpriced shops. NYC is truly turning into Epcot Center for the rich and the rest of us to gawk at and make them feel superior from the top of their overbuilt towers.
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Meanwhile, long established Parks like Dyker in Brooklyn and Van Courtland in The Bronx, stand neglected! Well, they were built for the masses, and in an increasingly growing City where the divergence of wealth and its' influence has lengthened, things will only get worse for the middle and lower classes!!!
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I live in the South Bronx, and parks here — e.g., Franz Sigel, Joyce Kilmer & McLaren — are in tip-top condition, all recently renovated & kept immaculately clean.
Our taxes used to pay for parks. Before the budget crisis of the 1970's park payments went from a mere 1% of the city's budget ( in the '60's when parks were well maintained and sustained), the amount of tax revenue hit an all time low under Bloomberg to .004% of the budget - 100th of earlier park spending as a percent of the city's total output. Twenty years ago there were over 40,000 park workers, now that number is less than 5% or about 1000 at last look on full time jobs. The park union is pretty much gutted so no collective bargaining power unless citizens wake up and help them. The real answer is to do what other places do: Mandate a certain percentage of our city's tax rolls be dedicated to parks. I have even suggested that our tax bills show what percent of our payments on each person's real estate tax bill goes to critical services that support our democracy - public parks, schools and libraries. Other cities do this and no one ever complains about the money that goes to these services. That would be a good, informative and democratic thing to do, no?
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We requested better maintenance of our parks several decades ago. As each borough president strolled in and out, we were ignored. The renovations only happened due to gentrifiers moving in.
Go to St. Mary's and you will find huge rats, homeless people living there, used needles, human waste, broken asphalt, etc. It is the largest park in the South Bronx but the least maintained. I guess we have to wait for gentrification yet again before we see real changes.
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There is so much hype about the Mayor's effort for a "Sustainable City" which flies in the face of the reprehensible Parks Without Borders scheme to destroy 58 healthy & mature trees in Brooklyn's historic Fort Greene Park.
It is no coincidence that new luxury towers are adjacent to the corner of the park where a sterile 43' hardscape Plaza is planned to sanitize the NW corner on Myrtle Ave (& abetted by the so-called & sullied 'Landmarks Preservation Commission').
Hmmm... NYCHA public housing-Ingersoll & Whitman are across the street-social engineering is afoot.
Commissioner Silver has become the 'urban planner' on behalf of real estate interests for his boss the Mayor & in so doing, this park & its trees need protection from the Parks Dept!
More on this and the lawsuit recently filed:
https://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/41/19/dtg-fort-greeners-sue-to-sav...
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This is such a pro development article. These parks are only here because the developers are REQUIRED by law to build them for taking up shoreline space.
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This is nice, but what is up with the replication of those completely useless 'chaise' style park benches. I hate them. Just give us lots of normal benches, please, the good old new york city parks and rec bench cannot be improved upon, except when it is one long continuous bench - so useful, so pretty. Those 'chaises' - what is up with that? STupid design.
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We would (hopefully) never have those chaises in any parks here in Seattle as they would immediately be colonized by the homeless!
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The chaises on the High Line are quite comfortable if you're lucky enough to get one. Simply repeating that a design is stupid doesn't make it true.
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We're (as a city) feeling our way here. The article has a line about how builders created some public space as far back as the 1960's in exchange for being able to build higher.
Some of that "public space" is still "nice," but it's extremely hard to see that it was a "fair exchange" - with the benefit of hindsight. Yes, a handful (really, that's all it is) of office workers have a sandwich al fresco a few times per year, but one can argue that our subways have been extra overcrowded for 50 years now as a result - twice a day, Mon-Fri.
When Mayor Bloomberg - a numbers guy for better & worse - said that it would be great if EVERY New Yorker had some green space pretty close to where s/he lived, it was predictable that much of that was going to be "pocket sized."
Maybe, it does a little bit for air quality, but it's as if the City mandated that coffee could only be sold in cups holding no more than 4 ounces.
Parts of 4 boros are probably too densely populated to permit much else, but much of what the article focuses on more closely resembles "bike storage" than it does the kind of amenity that benefits many non-residents.
Builders should get ZERO "breaks" for putting in green space < 1 acre. If it helps them sell or lease, that's advantage enough. The city needs every penny of real estate tax it can get - and these "amenities" barely move the needle for non-building-residents.
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As a frequent visitor, a tiny pocket park as compared to the total disgust that passes as a subway system is pretty underwhelming. Where are the priorities? Oh, right, for almost no money, the little people can be made happy with a bit of green grass. Meanwhile, the city is dirty, smelly, non-functional.
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These, for the most part, small spaces are not easily accessed by surrounding neighborhoods and are a cheap addition for the, for the most part, high end housing that towers around them. This article seems to be an ad for developers more than seriously looking at the concerns of long time residents who get priced out of their own neighborhoods.
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