...Parkside Avenue itself is predominantly commercial. The street
is anchored by four large merchants (McDonalds, Duane Reade, Popeye's and
Pioneer Supermarket), with a variety of hardy small businesses in between:
take-out restaurants, dry cleaners, bodegas, 99-cent stores. And these
businesses need to be hardy, because this is a terribly neglected block:
- There are no trees within fifty yards of Ocean Avenue.
- The few trees at the Flatbush Avenue end of the block are sickly, with sheets of plastic tangled in their crowns.
- Potholes plague both gutters.
- Thick scabs of paint peel from the entrance to the subway station at Parkside, and ailanthus trees colonize the subway roof.
- The traffic at Ocean and Parkside is constant and deadly, so that while Prospect Park is across the street, it might as well be miles away.
- Towering over the center of the block is 205 Parkside, which for years was occupied by squatters, and now sits vacant.
- Next door, the sidewalk has been commandeered by a squadron of bottle and glass recyclers.
Much of
Brooklyn enjoys a renaissance; Parkside stagnates. This dispiriting block is
the gauntlet that many thousands of Brooklynites must walk at the end of their
commutes home at night. Parkside Avenue has been neglected by many city
agencies for many decades, and cries out for attention.
The
Parkside Project Committee of PLGNA was formed in the spring of 2011. It works
to improve conditions on Parkside Avenue between Ocean Avenue and Flatbush
Avenue. In 2011 and 2012, the Committee organized and ran a design competition,
with $1000 in prizes, inviting architects and designers to imagine a new
Parkside Avenue. The competition received wide publicity; the conceptual
drawings submitted with this Public Plaza Grant application are the drawings
that won the grand prize. The northeast corner of Parkside and Ocean Avenues is
a quarter-acre triangle of concrete. There is nothing on this barren triangle:
not one tree, not one bench. Year in and year out, commuters hurry across this
plaza, eager to be anywhere else. This barren triangle is the entrance to our neighborhood.
(This site is also an entrance to Prospect Park. Residents of Park Slope or
Windsor Terrance can enter the park by any of several dozen quiet and leafy
streets; residents of Flatbush can only enter by way of the concrete at
Parkside. With the refurbishing of the Wollman Rink and the Music Island by the
Prospect Park Alliance, many thousands of New Yorkers will visit our corner of
Prospect Park for the first time. They, too, will enter by way of the concrete
at Parkside.) We believe this quarter acre could be better utilized for two
reasons. First, because on a day-to-day basis, the commuters and shoppers and
children who live on and around Parkside need something more than barren
concrete as the gateway to their neighborhood. Second, because Prospect Park,
the jewel of Brooklyn, needs an entrance that extends its canopy and its open
spaces into the surrounding streets. Instead of devoting a quarter acre in the
heart of Brooklyn to barren concrete, we hope DOT will help us fill the space with
trees, water, paving stones—and people.
In the
last year, DOT has begun to take steps to improve the safety of the pedestrian
crossings at Parkside and Ocean; we hope that DOT will see the advantages of
addressing the other half of the problem, the underutilized triangle of concrete
at Parkside. (We understand that DOT, in awarding Public Plaza Grants, takes
into consideration the proximity of open space to the proposed site. Please see
Note 3.) The Parkside Project Committee of PLGNA is devoted to bringing civic
improvements to Parkside Avenue. As discussed below, in 2011 PLGNA held a
design competition for Parkside Avenue; the winning entry featured the construction
of a plaza at Ocean and Parkside. We have attached, as a .pdf file, a design
board explaining the winning entry. We have also attached, as .jpgs,
photographs of the intersection as it exists today. We think the visual
contrast between what could be built at Parkside, and what exists today, says
it all.
At
present, the triangle at Parkside plays host to a weekly fair in the summer,
the Arts & Culture Fest, organized by a 501(c)(3) called The Creative Side.
We are friendly with the organizers of the Fest (they have submitted a letter
of support for this application), and PLGNA would look to The Creative Side in
developing programming in a newly built plaza. This programming would continue
to include a weekly fair, with occasional musical performances. We have also discussed
the possibility of expanding activities in the plaza to two days a week, with
the Fest on Saturdays and a farmer's market on Sundays.
In the
spring of 2011, a group of neighbors began meeting in a local coffee house with
the aim of building community support for civic improvements to our poor Parkside
Avenue: this was the birth of PLGNA's Parkside Project Committee. The original
concept was simple. PLGNA would hold a design competition, open both to design
professionals and to the general public, to solicit ideas for a new Parkside.
State Senator Eric Adams, an early supporter, contributed $1000 toward the
prize money. The Parkside Project Committee has a team of about one dozen
consistent and energetic volunteers, and since those early meetings in 2011,
they have repeatedly been in contact with the many merchants onParkside and
with all of the local elected officials. (We believe this broad outreach is
reflected by our many letters of support.) PLGNA announced the prize late in
the summer of 2011, to wide publicity. Thousands of leaflets were distributed
on the sidewalk in front of the Parkside subway station; hundreds of posters
were hung in local businesses; nearly a dozen local colleges and universities
were contacted; and PLGNA volunteers were interviewed in the local press and by
local TV news. In the end, more than a dozen proposals were submitted by
amateurs and professionals from across New York City.
In the
winter of 2012, PLGNA convened a jury to select a winner. (If PLGNA were to
create a Community Advisory Committee regarding a public plaza, it would begin
by re-contacting these jurors.) The jurors consisted of four merchants who own
businesses on or near Parkside Avenue, representatives from local block
associations, an arts group called PLG Arts, and a landscape designer from the
Prospect Park Alliance, as well as City Councilman Mathieu Eugene and State
Senator Eric Adams. The winning design was submitted by Cho/Shields Studio. A
.pdf of their winning design is included with this application. More entries
can be seen at the prize website: www.theparksideprize.org. In March of 2012,
PLGNA hosted a neighborhood party to show off the design and award the prizes.
Again, posters were hung, leaflets were distributed, and all the local blogs
advertised the night. Hundreds of neighbors attended the party; the delight and
excitement that was expressed was incredibly moving. Later that month, the
winning entry was presented to both CB9 and to CB14, where it was received with
great enthusiasm. What we have here is a neighborhood in unanimity: Something
new is needed. We very much hope that DOT will agree; we are eager to work with
DOT to build a better Parkside.
About PLGNA - the Sponsoring Organization
Submitting the Grant Proposal
PLGNA
was formed in 1969 by residents of Prospect Lefferts Gardens who opposed unfair
real estate and bank practices like redlining and wanted to form a working
interracial neighborhood. One of its first projects was to document 300
abandoned and 300 deteriorating buildings within the neighborhood. In 1973,
PLGNA became involved in a landmark legal battle to combat redlining. Over the
years, it has helped tenants to organize unions and blocks to form
associations; supported safety programs; transported seniors; developed youth programs;
and served as an umbrella organization for other neighborhood groups, including
many local block associations.
