The post-industrial,Brooklyn Bridge Park, located along the East River, has returned the city’s waterfront edge to public use unlike ever before in it’s more than 300 year history. The Brooklyn waterfront doesn’t just have a storied past but also a promising future.
To first understand why Brooklyn Bridge Park is so special one must first understand the rich history of its location, the East River Water Front. Before it was a park, before the BQE, before Brooklyn Bridge, when the Brooklyn we all know and love was known as Breukelen, there was het Veer, an independent village separate from the independent cities of Brooklyn and Manhattan. In 1652 the village of het Veer developed around the Old Fulton Ferry landing, named after Robert Fulton, inventor of the first steamboat ferry, and soon after integrated into Brooklyn. (Brooklyn Bridge Park website, the park) Then in 1783, according to Brooklyn Then and Now, by Marcia Reiss, the American Industrial Revolution began and the waterfront became home to numerous amounts of store and ware houses which gave its nickname, the walled city. According to the Brooklyn Bridge Park website, the New York Dock Co. owned over 40 piers and approximately 150 stores and warehouses. (the park) Then in the 1970’s the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway fully separated the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood from the waterfront completely. Eventually after the demise of the ferries due to the Brooklyn Bridge, and after port authority shutdown operations in piers 1-6 in 1983, due to the steady decline of shipping, the area turned into back water and the once thriving waterfront became forgotten.
Brooklyn Bridge park has revived the waterfront and reclaimed public access for everyone to enjoy. No longer are Brooklynites and visitors blocked off by the wall of factories and warehouses that once left the East River waterfront inaccessible for recreational use. Now Brooklyn’s East River waterfront is very much open and inviting for Brooklynites and visitors from all over the world. Construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park began in 2009, and is now open for kayaking, volley ball, Barge Music Concerts, book readings, movies under the bridge, the enjoyment of the beautifully restored 1922 Jane’s Carousel, and many more fun activities and events for the public to enjoy. The best part of it is, the park is still under construction and is only getting better. According to the Brooklyn Bridge Park website, the completion of the piers are scheduled to be fully completed by summer 2013; the park will include the re-utilized Tobacco Warehouse and Empire Store, a hotel, places to picnic an barbecue fields to play sports, basketball courts, an ice skating rink, and more.(park progress)
