A small beach at Bushwick Inlet Park, near Franklin Street and North 15th Street, is officially open.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m very happy to see this space made into something beautiful that we can use with our kids,\u201d one visitor said.<\/p>\n
The beach was built by the Parks Department with input from local community members, including longtime waterfront advocate Katherine Conkling Thompson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis inlet was closed off for more than 100 years,\u201d Conkling Thompson said. \u201cAfter the industrial era moved out, they basically just put up a fence and left it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new space is part of a much larger plan tied to the 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning, which promised expanded public access along the waterfront. <\/p>\n
But more than two decades later, only part of the planned park has been completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been over 20 years since the rezoning, and only about a third of the park has been built,\u201d Conkling Thompson said.<\/p>\n
The remaining land contained and will require cleaning up before a park can be built. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis area is basically the birthplace of the fossil fuel industry,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s been heavy industrial use here since the 1850s.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the small beach is already drawing families, children and neighbors looking for a quick escape.<\/p>\n
But some residents are raising concerns about a separate development proposal nearby – a controversial plan to build three large residential towers next to the park on land currently occupied by an MTA building.<\/p>\n
The proposal is continuing through the city\u2019s land use review process despite opposition from some community members.<\/p>\n
The City Planning Commission is expected to vote on the plan next week. A public hearing before the City Council is scheduled for May 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small beach at Bushwick Inlet Park, near Franklin Street and North 15th Street, is officially open. \u201cI’m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-221533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}