A Walk in Willowtown to the Future Brooklyn Bridge Park

Brooklyn Bridge Park, an 85-acre park now under construction, stretches along the East River from north of the Manhattan Bridge to Atlantic Avenue. A significant addition to the waterfront, the park will transform six piers into open green lawns, beaches, and playgrounds, all with a variety of recreational opportunities. The park promises the become a major new feature of the genteel Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, and while walking the neighborhood's famous high promenade above, the famous view of the lower Manhattan skyline will be layered with an additional view of the green parks spaces below. As the name of the park implies, there would also be a nice view of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Financing the ambitious stretch of public space has run into several problems that were mostly resolved

The park also brings the potential of new development to nearby neighborhoods in Brooklyn Heights. For those interested in seeing the park under construction, I recommend a visit to Willowtown, the name for the Heights neighborhood that sits at the southern

View Willowtown, Brooklyn Heights in a larger map

The neighborhood also features the curiously named Palmetto Playground*, a space that the neighbors share for a dog run, a community garden, and play equipment for children. According to the NYC Parks & Rec site, former NYC Park commissioner Henry J. Stern gave the playground this name because the street names - Columbia Place and State Street, as well as nearby Atlantic Avenue - inspired an association with Columbia, South Carolina and the state tree of South Carolina, the Cabbage Palmetto. (Read more at the Parks site.)
While visiting Willowtown or checking out the

Images from Walking Off the Big Apple. A personal note: I was in Columbia, South Carolina last weekend to give a lecture for the Columbia Design League on the topic of public art and pedestrian culture. As a way to connect developments in New York with their own urban plans and initiatives, I began the slide show with images of this walk, leading in dramatic fashion to a slide of the Palmetto Playground. It greatly surprised them, as it did me, to learn of this unexpected connection between their city and a tucked-away playground in Brooklyn Heights.
Related posts:
The Advantages of a New Perspective: A Literary Walk in Brooklyn Heights (October 2010, includes pictures of the completed section of Brooklyn Bridge Park.)
Literary DUMBO: An Afternoon Walk Under the Bridges in Search of Books
* Note: In May 2013, the park was renamed Adam Yauch Park, after the member of the Beastie Boys who played there as a child. Yauch died of cancer in 2012 at the age of 47. (WNYC story)
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