Brooklyn Boro

Times columnist praises parks along Brooklyn-Queens waterfront

August 10, 2018 By Raanan Geberer Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The newly-opened Domino Park. Eagle file photo by Lore Croghan
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The three new or expanded parks along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront are good news, says New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman. He focuses on Brooklyn Bridge Park, whose central lawn he calls “a mini-version of Sheep Meadow;” the privately built Domino Park in Williamsburg; and Hunters Point South Park in Long Island City, Queens, which has 11 acres of playground and promenades.

It’s hard to forget, Kimmelman says, that barely more than a decade ago, Brooklyn Bridge Park was “a grimy sprawl of parking lots and warehouses on decrepit piers” and the Hunters Point site was “a ruin of shuttered factories along the shore.” At the Domino site, the Domino Sugar Refinery was still operating, although in a greatly diminished capacity, as late as 2004.

Kimmelman quotes a phrase from Canadian planner and architect Ken Greenberg, “the melting of the industrial glacier,” to describe the transformation of the waterfront since the departure of industry in the late 20th century. While Kimmelman acknowledges that many jobs have been lost, he reiterates that these three parks, all developed during the Bloomberg era, are meeting an expanded population’s need for more open space.

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