{"id":477363,"date":"2026-02-19T07:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/477363\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T07:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:02:20","slug":"the-shirley-chisholm-rec-center-opens-in-east-flatbush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/477363\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shirley Chisholm Rec Center Opens in East Flatbush"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Almost immediately after the Parks Department\u2019s new Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center opened in the Little Haiti section of East Flatbush in early February, the building hummed with teens vigorously hanging out. They slumped, joked, strolled, shot hoops, rested between sets, and generally gave the impression there was nowhere they\u2019d rather be. That\u2019s one immediate measure of good architecture: the pleasure quotient. The building was designed to make the most of leisure time. Sure, you might suffer through a deep squat, grit your teeth for another lap in the pool, and complain about a stretch, but you do all that because it makes you feel good.<\/p>\n

Is architecture responsible for that overflow of wellness? In theory, it\u2019s the equipment that counts. Whether you\u2019re riding an exercise bike in a basement or a penthouse, the payoff for your body is the same. But Shirley \u2014 which is what the architects call both their building and the pioneering Black congresswoman it honors \u2014 is a public space that could compete with a Manhattan condo both in its amenities<\/a> (podcast booth, dance studio, learning kitchen) and its deluxe design. The pricing, though, is bare-bones: As at all Parks Department rec centers, membership is free for those 24 and under, $150 a year for adults, and $25 for seniors.<\/p>\n

The Department of Design and Construction, the city agency responsible for most new civic buildings, has a program meant to yield architecture that goes beyond the serviceable, and this is a showcase project. In theory, any studio, based anywhere in the world, can team up with a locally licensed firm and compete for public jobs. In practice, the difficulties of working for the city \u2014 and the fact that prestige often substitutes for profit \u2014 have limited the pool. In recent years, Studio Gang<\/a> has embraced those challenges. The firm, headed by Jeanne Gang, is celebrated for big gestures: Aqua Tower\u2019s wavy balconies and watery fa\u00e7ade<\/a> in downtown Chicago, the Gilder Center\u2019s Flintstones chic<\/a>. Shirley, however, is a boldly modest project that works because of the way it combines a few well-chosen flourishes with off-the-shelf details.<\/p>\n

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\n The competition-size pool beneath a ceiling of fish-belly timber beams.
\n Photo: Alexander Severin\n <\/p>\n

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\n From left: Pick your sweat style: down for basketball, through for track, up for weight room. Photo: Alexander SeverinPhoto: Alexander Severin\/Alexander Severin\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: Pick your sweat style: down for basketball, through for track, up for weight room. Photo: Alexander SeverinPhoto: Alexander Severin\/Alexande… more
\n From top: Pick your sweat style: down for basketball, through for track, up for weight room. Photo: Alexander SeverinPhoto: Alexander Severin\/Alexander Severin\n <\/p>\n

As you enter, you\u2019re presented with several variously alluring paths. First, head to the back of the lobby and peer through glass walls to behold the competition-size pool, where backstroke swimmers gaze up not at a tangle of ducts but at a ceiling of fish-belly timber beams, giving the experience a certain Scandi \u00e9lan. Crucially, a long entry ramp angles into the water along one edge of the pool, which is liberating for those who swim more comfortably than they can walk. From the lobby, a sherbet-orange staircase leads down to the basketball court or up to the gym. Along the way, the design bubbles with circles \u2014 a cylindrical reception desk, arched windows, porthole windows of assorted sizes and heights, a stairway landing that mirrors the curve of the indoor track, curved landings on the stairs, Shirley Chisholm campaign buttons stenciled on glass. These touches add up, making the building feel more organically enveloping and less like a box full of boxes.<\/p>\n

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\n From left: Peekaboo porthole windows keep the building playful. Photo: Justin DavidsonPhoto: Justin Davidson\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: Peekaboo porthole windows keep the building playful. Photo: Justin DavidsonPhoto: Justin Davidson\n <\/p>\n

The good vibes can get a little strained. The building enfolds Vanessa German\u2019s East Flatbush People\u2019s Museum of Love and Wonder, a collection of cloying installations. German asked neighborhood children to complete sentences like \u201cIn the future, my dream is \u2026\u201d She tucked each slip of paper into a big transparent bead, then assembled the lot into a cluster, secured in a vitrine and placed by a window: glass behind glass next to glass.<\/p>\n

The building\u2019s collection of uses could just as easily have been packed into a windowless cinderblock warehouse with simplicity outside, bustle and noise inside. Instead, Studio Gang\u2019s design advertises its vibrancy but keeps costs under control by appearing more complicated than it is. From a nearby park bench, it looks like three different pieces of a jigsaw puzzle stacked so that tabs and blanks don\u2019t line up. In reality, it\u2019s a straightforward three-story rectangle with different sequences of arches and slot windows on each floor. Segments of arches seem to disappear into the ground, daylighting the buried basketball court from above. At the top, three corners are chamfered and the fourth is a roof terrace, almost as if a smaller white building were levitating above the base.<\/p>\n

Two different-size arches meet at the corner entrance.<\/p>\n

The cheerful lobby doubles as a hangout spot.<\/p>\n

The dance studio with a view \u2014 actually, a double view \u2014 of the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Vanessa German\u2019s The Dreaming Vessel.<\/p>\n

\n photographs by Justin Davidson\n <\/p>\n

At ground level, one side is pinched out so that the entrance comes forward to greet the visitor on the diagonal. There, two different arches and two glass walls intersect at the corner, making the fa\u00e7ade look like a cross-section of the interior \u2014 the architectural equivalent of wearing a skeleton costume. That kind of fancy detail might provoke a bean counter\u2019s agita; it\u2019s a literal corner begging to be cut.<\/p>\n

If such a move survived public scrutiny without getting whittled away, it\u2019s partly because the project had a relatively generous budget of $141 million but also because it was built under a new set of regulations meant to smooth the potholed road from conception to completion. In the traditional method for public construction, called \u201cdesign-bid-build,\u201d the city comes up with a budget, commissions a design, solicits bids from construction companies, picks the cheapest, and supervises the process by requiring innumerable approvals and generating abundant \u2014 often expensive \u2014 delays. The result is that kids grow up and move away in the time it takes to renovate\u00a0their local library branch. The system is set up to drag, theoretically to combat corruption, and as a result, money is wasted instead of stolen.<\/p>\n

In 2019, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo persuaded the\u00a0State Legislature to allow the city to use the design-build process<\/a> on certain kinds of projects; in those cases, a construction company and an architecture firm (here, Consigli and Studio Gang) compete for the job as a unified team. From the beginning, design ideas, building techniques, and costs are worked out in tandem. The DDC keeps a contingency fund in reserve to cover overruns without needing to stop the clock and consult a whole battery of bureaucrats. The trajectory is smoother than it has been for decades: It took a year to design Shirley and two to build it, cheetah speed compared with the usual sloth pace. Quicker is cheaper and not (necessarily) worse.<\/p>\n

This rec center, the first of four to benefit from the design-build process, doesn\u2019t settle for good enough. In fact, it\u2019s the most appealing building for many blocks around. Even more important, it doesn\u2019t signal suspicion of its neighbors. Plenty of nominally welcoming buildings issue all kinds of warnings in the name of security or durability (or, in effect, neglect) \u2014 benches are steel, fences are high, doors are locked. Studio Gang designed this project not to contradict itself. This is architecture with an invitation: Come. Stay. Enjoy.<\/p>\n

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