Plans for Brooklyn’s Best
Park Discussed at CB6 Meeting
By Samuel Newhouse
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
PARK SLOPE — At the Community Board 6 meeting on Wednesday night, Tupper Thomas, the head of the Prospect Park Alliance (PPA), outlined upcoming park projects and long-term development plans.
The biggest project is called Lakeside, or the Lakeside Center, Thomas told the audience. This plan includes restoring 26 acres of park landscape, wildlife habitat, and lake shore.
Music Island in Prospect Lake will be worked on and improved as a wildlife sanctuary, and more than a hundred trees will be added to the park. It will span the area from the intersection of Parkside Ave and Ocean Ave to Lincoln Road and Breeze Hill.
Thomas explained that with a new skating rink next to the Wollman rink, one would be completely outdoors and the other would be covered for year-round activity.
Thomas said that with an area available to be rented, there could be hockey games and other events to draw in hundreds of new attendees, including local summer camps.
“There will also be roller-skating, which is a lost thing in Brooklyn now that Empire has closed,” Thomas said, referring to the recently closed Empire Roller Skating Center.
The project is slated to cost about $60 million, but Thomas said that the Prospect Park Alliance is well funded.
“The City Council, Mayor’s Office and borough president have all put in funds, and we currently have about $30 million,” she added.
Ten million dollars for this project came from the Leon Levy Foundation through trustee Shelby White, who grew up near the park on Crooke Avenue, Thomas said.
The Prospect Park Alliance is hoping to complete designs for Lakeside and receive all necessary approvals by 2010. The project will likely take 18 months and possibly be completed by 2011.
She also said that the Vanderbilt Playground is going to be refurbished with a budget of $1.8 million, which Thomas said they received with the aid of City Councilman Bill de Blasio (D-Park Slope/Cobble Hill).
“It’ll be a really fun playground, small but exciting,” Thomas said.
The Parade Ground is also being restored, and new, clean bathrooms are being built.
“Clearly the budget cuts are going to be problematic for parks across the city,” Thomas said, addressing the current economic crisis. “But for those of you who’ve lived here for a while and remember what Prospect Park was like in the ’80s – it’s not going to go back there. It’s not going to be like it was in the 1970s.”
For more information, visit www.prospectpark.org.
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© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2009
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