So let’s see if we can end parks week on a (slightly) up note, by highlighting some of the good news out there.

Transmitter Park, original (2008) design.
Image via Newyorkshitty

First off, Transmitter Park, which is slated to go in at the former WNYC transmitter site at the foot of Greenpoint Avenue. The property is owned by the City, so acquisition is not an issue. A design (above) was issued more than a year ago. That has required some modification to comply with NYState DEC regulations, but that has all been worked out, and the fish are protected. So everything should be poised to move forward, right? Well sort of – the Daily News reported this week that Transmitter Park is expected to be completed in Summer 2011. And it’s not clear to me that the money for this capital project has even been allocated. Which in this economic environment spells trouble.

McCarren Park Pool, preliminary design
Rogers Marvel Archtiects

One project where the money has been allocated and construction has started is McCarren Park Pool. The Department of Parks & Recreation selected an architect over a year ago and held a successful series of community charettes to get ideas on programming, etc. That resulted in an exciting design, which the City has allocated funds to construct – $50 million in funds, in fact. Unfortunately, $50 million does not go as far today as it did two years ago, so the diving pool has been value engineered out of the project. But the main pool and the restoration of the landmarked pool house is going forward.

Photo: vidiot on flickr

Jeremiah takes a walk down Franklin Street and doesn’t exactly like what he sees. Things like “outdoor cafes packed with wafer-thin women cradling chihuahuas in their laps, bars with clever names, ‘craft brew’ beer stores [where is that?], and coffee shops filled with bearded men peering at Mac laptops through chalk-white Wayfarer shades.” In short, everything he saw as authentic on his tour of Manhattan Avenue is threatened by the renaissance of Franklin Street.

Personally, I think the dichotomy of Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street is a fascinating – and so far positive – urban study. Yes, Franklin Street is gentrifying, but what’s interesting is that it is not gentrifying at the expense of Manhattan Avenue. The two really exist as parallel universes. Nor is the gentrification of Franklin Street pushing out local stores. 100 years ago, Franklin Street was filled with locally-owned ground-floor retail stores. Ten years ago, most of Franklin Street was not retail – the old storefronts were vacant or had been converted to apartments. As new people came into the neighborhood looking to open businesses, they found a ready stock of underutilized commercial space. The same thing has been happening along Grand Street west of the BQE – storefronts that had been vacant for decades are suddenly being reborn as bars, restaurants, boutiques, bicycle shops, book stores and much more. Local businesses owned by local residents, and by and large, none of it is displacing older businesses.

Layers of history – former storefronts that had been bricked in are now being reopened.
Photo: ashfordesign on flickr

This is exactly the kind of development most urbanists would love to see. And it came about not through some planner drawing a line on a map, but rather as a result of a series of individual decisions, all of which started with a recognition of a quality, underutilized building stock. Instead of boarded up storefronts, it’s eyes on the street in the classic Jane Jacobs sense. It’s economic development from the bottom up. It’s more local jobs where none had existed for decades. It’s more income for building owners, many of whom are also locals (and long-timers). Sure it’s (generally) serving one segment of the population, but it can be benefitting many segments. And sure it’s a fragile ecosystem that needs to be carefully nurtured. It could all go to pot and become Soho, or expand east to Manhattan Avenue and displace long-time businesses there.

When I sat down Sunday evening to write about the state of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning four years down the line, I did not intend for this week to turn into North Brooklyn Parks & Recreation week. But it has, so let’s just go with the flow.

Because as it turns out, this is quite the week for (not)parks activism. We already mentioned David Yassky’s City Hall rally on Thursday to publicize the plight of 65 Commercial Street. The real show, though, comes on Saturday – Where’s My Park? Day in North Brooklyn. (In the rest of the city, Saturday is It’s My Park! Day, but the rest of the city does not have as many (not)parks as we do, so they do things a bit differently than we do – they probably don’t have creepy posters like we do, either.)

So, instead of celebrating your park at It’s My Park Day, dress as if you had a park and join GWAPP and NAG* to protest the fact the you don’t have the parks, open space and waterfront access that you were promised four years ago. The festivities kick off at 2:00 p.m. at Kent and North 14th Street, which is (not)Bushwick Inlet Park. The event continues later in the afternoon at (not)Transmitter Park (at the foot of Greenpoint Avenue) and then (not)65 Commercial Street.

[*Full disclosure – I’m on the NAG board.]