The dream of North Brooklyn’s long awaited Bushwick Inlet Park has yet to be fully realized, but it’s steadily (though slowly) making progress. The NYC Parks Department just broke ground on a new parcel of land.
“Construction is beginning ahead of schedule on the Motiva parcel, which is the northernmost portion of the park and runs along the perimeter of the inlet,” said City Council Member Lincoln Restler in an email to constituents. “We are expecting this park space to open in Spring of 2026. Also, the demolition of the massive CitiStorage warehouse is finally happening this Fall and should be completed by the end of 2024.”
According to the non-profit group Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, the Motiva parcel will include “a riparian shoreline, soft water’s edge and getdown, human powered boating access and floating research oyster stations.”
We’ve long documented the challenges associated with bringing Bushwick Inlet Park to life, which was initially promised to Greenpoint and Williamsburg residents as part of the 2005 waterfront rezoning. Pieces of the park have opened over since then, including the 50 Kent parcel in 2022, but the park is still far from being unified.
When the park is completed, FBIP says it “will provide close to 40 acres of contiguous open space directly on the East River,” alongside the neighboring Marsha P. Johnson State Park.
“We are expecting this park space to open in Spring of 2026.” Given that this was promised for 2005, why not speed up construction so that the folks who fought for this over decades are still around to enjoy it??? Try for ONE YEAR. It can be done if there’s a political will!!!!!!
With pols in NYC good things happen at a glacial pace. I think icebergs will melt quicker than this park being completed.
This is a great thing but the real story is that the reason the whole park isn’t being done at once is the age old tail of oil giants Exxon and Chevron raped these grounds of resources, left contaminants, and now would rather leave their mess rot than invest a few million in doing something good for humanity. Imagine, greedy oil company decides to do something to benefit people that might not be shareholders. There’s a story. Instead by the time this park is actually built, the damage done by oil companies will have it underwater.
Indeed. This is hard because of all the toxic shit on the ground left by oil companies. They are still arguing to make sure they don’t have to pay for it.