Over 20 years, Brooklyn Bridge Park, designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), has transformed a 1.3-mile stretch of a once-gritty industrial waterfront into a lush and treasured resource for New York. The completion of Pier 3, one of the last major elements—and the final of five piers to be developed—has been timely, providing a verdant landscape for locals to retreat to during the pandemic. With its loosely defined program, this park on a pier has drawn a range of visitors as they temporarily leave behind the stresses of dense urban living during a summer of COVID restrictions.
The long, narrow 85-acre park is squeezed between the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway and the East River, a tidal estuary, with Manhattan’s skyline just beyond. Managed by the not-for-profit Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, the park includes eight acres of private development—largely condos and a hotel—that provides the income for maintenance and operations. The first portion, Pier 1, was completed in 2010. Today, the park—which attracts over 5 million visitors annually—includes piers dedicated to soccer fields and basketball courts, as well as playgrounds, a marina, fishing and barbecuing areas, zones for kayaking, and a spine-like greenway along the shore that links the pieces and is well-used by cyclists and runners.
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