City plans for the park at 50 Kent (courtesy of NYC Department of Parks and Recreation)
Park construction is finally underway at 50 Kent in Williamsburg
The $7 million, two-acre project is part of a broader plan to revitalize the Bushwick-Greenpoint waterfront
Construction on a new park in Williamsburg, stalled due to Covid-related budget cuts, has finally gotten underway.
The city has finally begun construction on a delayed two-acre park is at 50 Kent Avenue, between N 11th and N 12th Streets. The $7 million project by the Parks Department is slated to be finished by next spring. It will feature green infrastructure, forest groves, sloping lawns, and a water play area.
The project first began back in 2018, but stalled out due to coronavirus-related budget cuts. Over the summer, especially as parks saw record attendance during the pandemic, locals enjoyed a teaser pop-up park on the plot, with limited weekend hours. Now on the path to permanence, 50 Kent site is actually one piece of a larger initiative in the area to revitalize the Bushwick-Greenpoint waterfront and the Bushwick Inlet Park. Once an industrial site, the 50 Kent site was first greenlit for a makeover under Mayor Bloomberg’s 2009 plan.
“We’re very happy because the parks have never been more heavily used,” Steve Chesler, a co-founder of Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, told Brooklyn Paper.
The long awaited new park is just one of a series of green upgrades coming to the borough, including an expanded bike lane on the Brooklyn Bridge, and a plan to renovate Fort Greene Park.
