Fort Greene Park…Pave Paradise, Put Up A Parking Lot

My father had a laissez faire approach to parenting, which seemed common among children of immigrants, born in the years just before WWII. I remember once he asked me to accompany him to the local library to return a book. This 40 pound black bicycle that had been through the wars was dragged up from the cellar. He would place it on the sidewalk and sit on the seat next to the front stoop and wait for me to vault, unaided, onto the crossbar from the third step.

Once on the frame of the bicycle I had to situate myself in the side saddle position on the crossbar. This was not the most comfortable position, let alone safe, but safety in the early 1970’s was not at the forefront of traffic policy, and at 5 years old who was I to complain. I then had to quickly grab onto the handle bars in order to steady myself for the journey ahead.

When it appeared that I was in place, my father would push off down Vanderbilt Avenue, an avenue conveniently pitched downhill en route to the Navy Yard. Only a minimum amount of peddling was required if any at all to reach our final destination.

Gravity swept us to Myrtle Ave. and at Myrtle we took a left. Once again we were propelled down another decline going toward Jay Street. Now, under the shadow of the defunct Myrtle Avenue El (elevated line) we would be consumed by shadow. I clutched the handlebars even tighter as we bobbed between shadow and light as the sun streamed through the rail ties and the train roared over our heads.

I would sit on that crossbar, white knuckled, like the girl on the prow, albeit a far more precarious prow, and watch the neighborhood fly by. The Korean vegetable market with its huge wooden bins overflowing with anything from potatoes, to bok choy. Tony the tailor, the neighborhood dry cleaner, a man who had come through the war, and lived, despite the numbers tattooed on his forearm. There was the last soaped up window of an empty storefront, and Nina’s, the Italian bakery run by a returning vet and his Italian war bride Nina. Nina’s always made the avenue sweet smelling if only for a block or two.

By the time we hit the steepest decline on Myrtle, we were passing Fort Greene Park. Once a fort during the revolutionary war, Fort Greene Park was now a public park designed by the duo of Olmstead and Vaux in 1867. At the highest point in the park is the Prison Ship Martyr’s Monument, the tallest structure around at the time save for the Williamsburg Savings Bank on Hanson Place.

The monument, designed by Sanford White, shot up straight into the sky, as it does to this day, demanding all who approach take heed, and just below it on the grand staircase is a sarcophagus containing the remains of colonists who died as prisoners fighting the British during the Revolutionary War.

There wasn’t much of our journey remaining as we made a right off Myrtle onto St. Edwards St.. The bike was running out of momentum as we approached the front steps of the Walt Whitman Branch of the NYC Public Library named after one of Brooklyn’s famous sons.

Walt Whitman, was born in Huntington Long Island and moved as a child, with his family to Brooklyn in May of 1823. He spent 28 years in Brooklyn working various jobs in the newspaper business, newsboy, type setter and eventually becoming editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. He lived on Ryerson Street from 1855 to 1856, the street my father grew up on.

Walt Whitman was instrumental in getting not only Fort Greene Park built, but also the Prison Ship Martyr’s Monument.

Originally called Fort Putnam, Fort Greene was a Revolutionary War fort built on high ground for the Battle of Long Island during the early days of the war. It derived its first name from Rufus Putnam, George Washington’s chief engineer. During the War of 1812 the fort was renamed Fort Greene after General Nathaniel Greene, George Washington’s Aide-de-Camp. After its use as a military installation declined, Walt Whitman, then the editor of The Brooklyn Eagle, advocated for a park to be put in its place.

During the Revolutionary War, prisoners who fought for the colonies and had been captured were imprisoned in the hulls of British ships in Wallabout Bay, where now stands The Brooklyn Navy Yard. America was a British colony, a land mass with an entire ocean to cross in order to gain access to its shores. It did not have large facilities for the British to house prisoners, so the hulls of anchored ships would have to do.

To read accounts of conditions in the hold, it was a hellish existence that took the lives of over an estimated 11,000 colonists. When a prisoner died, the body was unceremoniously brought out of the hold, and simply thrown overboard into the bay. Stories had been told in the neighborhood for years of bones washing up on the shore.

In 1873 the skeletal remains of colonists that could be found were gathered from the bay area and interred in Fort Greene Park in a sarcophagus that sits on the great stairs leading up to the monument. This is the first tomb of the unknown soldier in this country and to date is not recognized as a federal landmark. The care of Fort Greene Park is entrusted to the City of New York

Today the park serves as a 32.2 acre haven for the neighborhoods, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Wallabout Bay. It is the only large scale green space with a sizable tree canopy available to those communities, providing pleasure all year round and much needed relief in the summer months. The tree canopy shades the sarcophagus and the stairs leading up to the monument giving those interred a final peaceful place after their hellish imprisonment and subsequent death. It is also the home to a reported ninety nine species of birds, including a red tailed hawk who has claimed the top of the monument as her own.

In 2015 under the DeBalsio Administration parks commissioner Mitchell Silver launched the Parks Without Borders Initiative. This was a design approach proposed to “help unify park spaces with the neighborhoods they serve.” The goal of this initiative was described as, “making entrances more welcoming, convenient, and easy to find.” The project was funded under DeBlasio’s OneNYC plan, a continuation of the Bloomberg PlaNYC program.

The park was in desperate need of maintenance, as it had been for decades. It had been left to its own devices for as long as I can remember, and the parks department patched what they could through the years. In 2016 Fort Greene Park was selected for the Parks Without Borders Program. The infusion of much needed funding and maintenance was welcome news in the neighborhood. The city was going to invest 10.5 million dollars. The devil was in the details.

The parks department proposed cutting down a reported 83 trees and pouring “13,000 feet” of concrete at the base of the stairs cementing over the grass mounds that lead to the staircase, the sarcophagus and the monument. The new cement slab would create an open area plaza devoid of shade, creating what can only be called an environmental frypan, and the trees that were to be cut down would now give an "unobstructed view” of the monument. The only thing obstructing the view of the monument is the wall of luxury high rise towers now inundating the Downtown Brooklyn skyline.

Rumors flew that the newly cemented, now non shaded plaza would be opened to vendors to set up shop to sell their wares, and food. These rumors were denied in a newsletter put out by the Fort Greene Park Conservancy. The Conservancy, is a private non profit organization that works with NYC Park’s to maintain the up keep of the park.

An article written by Kendra Hurley in the publication City and State New York on October 16, 2019 states, “An early rendering of the park design depicted farmer’s market type stands in the proposed plaza.”… “ In recent years some park experts have urged more parks to enlist vendors as a way to raise revenue for maintenance and several Parks Without Borders showcase projects do involve plazas.”

The City and State New York piece also states that Parks Without Borders is controversial, and that several projects under this program have come under neighborhood scrutiny. “Some believe that issues of class and race are at play, pointing out that many of the areas chosen for Parks Without borders “showcase” projects are in neighborhoods that were once low income but have experienced rapid gentrification in recent years.

Christobel Gough of the Society of the Architecture of the City, a historic preservation advocacy group, “believes part of the program’s unspoken aim is to make these long-neglected parks ‘a little less shabby’ for the new luxury high-rises, especially those that contain a mix of luxury and affordable apartments as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s affordable housing plan.”

The community was alarmed by the proposal and organized The Friends of Fort Greene Park to address the issues coming to light. The Friends of Fort Greene asked the parks department for justification for razing anywhere from 58 to 83 trees.

In 2017 the parks department gave an in depth presentation about the project and its parameters. The presentation was rebuffed by strong community opposition. The Brooklyn Paper reported in response to the fallout from the presentation, “Commissioner Silver presided over a more than two hour lecture for parks employees at Queens Theater on how to spin public opinion to unpopular projects.”

“200 Parks Department employees, mostly from the Capitol Projects Division were mandated to attend the talk, Public Engagement 101: Tips to enhance your public meeting experience.”… “We actually had a presentation telling us we needed to learn how to spin things better,” said a Capitol Division park staffer who attended the class and requested anonymity for fear of retribution.”

The parks department, having failed to convince the community of its plans, did a quick pivot in order to push this proposal through. The department informed the community, according to The Downtown Brooklyn Star on November 17, 2023 written by Oona Milliken, “that the trees were being removed because they were at risk of disease.” This was no longer a renovation project this was a safety issue. Much like the hurried street restructuring that is being done in the city, it would seem that the safety label was applied so that all facts, opinions or material to the contrary could and would be ignored by the powers that be.

The Friends of Fort Greene Park filed their first FOIL request to get the parks department to release the report from the arborist hired by the city to assess the tree condition of those trees slated to be razed. The FOIL request was granted and it was found that the park’s department report from the arborist declared all but 9 trees were being removed for design purposes, and the remaining 9 were being removed for condition.

An independent arborist hired by Friends of Fort Greene Park countered with a report stating that all the trees in question were in good condition, some trees needed some work but all were in good condition.

A second FOIL request was filed for the report submitted by Nancy Owens the parks departments consultant. Much of that report when given to the Friends of Fort Greene was heavily redacted. In response Friends of Fort Greene Park filed their first law suit requesting the unreacted report from Nancy Ownes.

A judge decided in favor of the Friends of Fort Greene and told the Parks Department to hand over the unredacted report. The city then appealed that ruling which sent the case into the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Friends of Fort Greene , and the city turned over the unredacted report.

The next law suit was brought by the Sierra Club with Friends of Fort Greene Park as the plaintiff. This suit said that the city needed to do an environmental review. The city chose to do an environmental assessment, which is not as rigorous as an environmental impact study. The judge sided with the Friends of Fort Greene and the Sierra Club and said the city needed to do an environmental assessment.

The environmental assessment gave a negative declaration citing no negative impacts from the Parks Without Borders Plan but did not touch on any of the environmental concerns that have been raised by the community; impacts on animal life, carbon capture, the rise of an urban heat island, increased asthma rates not to mention the social justice and socio economic impact that this project would have on the community.

In 2020 New York State Supreme court ordered the city to reassess the park renovation and its need to raze 83 trees. On April 14, 2021 it was reported in the Brooklyn Paper that the Park’s Department very much intended on chopping down 58 trees for a now $24 million makeover. The case is back in the court system and waiting to be heard by a judge.

The encroachment of high end luxury buildings has now crept up to Ashland Place which borders the park. This encroachment does nothing to dissuade the position that gentrification is the guiding force and that the park is being remade to attract those able to purchase, or afford to rent, in those newly built buildings.

In the proposals by the city, there is no mention that I found of the effect of the damage the removal of a tree canopy will be on the environment, the community, or the bird population.

Fort Greene Park is across the street from a large NYCHA complex that has, more recently, had its own green spaces removed to put up even more large scale affordable housing. The discussions of the proposed plaza seem to focus on aesthetics, not the effects of removing a major shade and carbon capture source in the inner city.

Starting with the Bloomberg administration through DeBlasio and now the Adams Administration there has been constant heavy handed lobbying by well heeled lobby groups for the need for the city to go ever more “green.” The idea of ecological approaches and solutions in planning a city should be on the table at all times and implemented when possible and feasible, but it can not be used as a way to fast track developers plans, and line the pockets of lobbyists looking for the next investment.

Is Fort Greene Park now being used to sell real estate, and further increase the cost of living in the area driving more of our neighbors out? Or perhaps is it to push throngs of tourists farther into the borough? Tourism has already overwhelmed the neighborhood of Dumbo and the Brooklyn Bridge. The last thing this city needs is the headaches that will ensue from the effects of large scale tourism that Europe is now facing. Instead of learning from Europe’s oppressive overcrowding and environmentally damaging tourism we seem to be actively encouraging it.

Where is the discussion of the impact of putting too many people in to too small a space? Of paving over green space to attract and provide yet another plaza for those visiting? How will this affect the environment and the quality of life of those who reside here? The discussion seems to be stagnant on growth and development.

How can the citizens of this city possibly trust administrations that misrepresented the implementation of a project, and altered the facts in order to implement design changes to a historical landmark, and an environmental necessity?

The parks department gets only 1% of the city budget. NYC should not limit the budget to the parks department to 1%, relying on conservancies to fill in the financial gaps. The city collects enough tax revenue to support the parks department properly. If private entities wish to give money for the upkeep of parks then that money should be invested in the upkeep of the infrastructure. The money should be given freely and with no strings attached, or power granted or gained.

No one is denying that the park needs repair, and that if any trees are not healthy they should be removed for the safety of all. That is and has always been welcome, but to cement over grass mounds to create a business opportunity for vendors right under the very remains of colonists who fought, suffered and died to free the colonies from British rule and create this experiment in democracy, is misguided, not to mention disrespectful. What is next vending stands at Arlington?

Unbridled growth and development does nothing more than devour its surroundings. By the time the effects of the current administration’s policies will be felt, that administration will be gone and it will be someone else’s problem. The residents of these neighborhoods will be left holding the bag in the sweltering unshaded heat if they can still afford to live here. Is this what the colonists fought for, representation solely through the lens of unbridled capitalism?

For further information on the subject please visit The Friends of Fort Greene Park website.

“O captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done.

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The point is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes to the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you the bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread;

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman