State and local officals met with community groups June 20, to call on Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York State to advance BQGreen.
BQGreen is a more-than-a-decade-in-the-making plan to platform over a portion of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway that runs below street level in Williamsburg, combining and expanding Marcy Green and Rodney Park into 3.5 acres of green, open space.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Rep. Nydia Velázquez were joined by Council Member Jennifer Gutierrez, Council Member Lincoln Restler, State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez and community groups St. Nick’s Alliance, Los Sures and El Puente to bring focus to the park expansion.
The new green space would be outfitted with a flower garden, a playground, a baseball diamond, barbecues, grassy and wooded areas, an indoor pool and a water play zone.
“For over a decade, our Southside community has rallied around the BQGreen as a chance to bring beautiful parkland to Williamsburg, reconnect our neighborhoods, and finally move forward from the racist legacy of Robert Moses’s BQE,” Reynoso said. “Now the stars have all but aligned — the funding is there, the support of the people remains strong — but still the State chooses to dig in its heels and turn a blind eye to the harms of the past that remain alive and well here in Williamsburg. By co-applying for the billions of federal dollars currently up for grabs, the State has an opportunity to finally show up for our people. The BQGreen is a chance at environmental justice and a critical first step toward a completely re-imagined BQE. We won’t let the State get away with letting that slip away.”
Then-City Council Member Diana Reyna, for whom Reynoso was serving as chief of staff, came up with the project in 2010. After succeeding Reyna in 2014 as the council member representing the 34th district, Reynoso has continued to champion the project with the support of the Williamsburg community.
“From high asthma rates to heavy traffic and noise pollution, the BQE has imposed terrible costs on Brooklyn communities for decades” said Velázquez. “With BQGreen, we can begin to repair this legacy by reconnecting communities and creating a vibrant green gathering space that all Brooklynites can be proud of. The federal infrastructure funding currently available presents our State with a critical opportunity to finance BQGreen and address numerous environmental justice and public health issues in the process. We can’t let this moment slip by. That’s why we are calling on the State to join us in this fight and do everything at their disposal to make BQGreen a reality.”
In response to the State’s neglect of Brooklyn’s environmental justice communities, Reynoso, Velazquez and 16 fellow elected officials issued a joint statement calling the State’s refusal to commit to participating in NYC DOT’s visioning process for their portions of the BQE “completely unacceptable and irresponsible.”
The need for more parkland in Brooklyn Community District 1, which includes Williamsburg and Greenpoint, remains a top priority — identified by the community board as one of ‘the three most pressing issues’ to be addressed in Fiscal Year 2024.
With only 5% of the total district area parkland, the district ranks 48 out of all 59 city districts when it comes to park space relative to total land area. BQGreen would add more green space, help mitigate the public health harms of toxic pollution, and reconnect communities, demonstrating that re-envisioning the BQE is possible when the political will is there, the group said.
"The community in the Southside of Williamsburg coalesced around a vision for its stretch of the BQE highway many years ago,” said Restler. "The BQGreen Plan would reduce emissions, create much-needed green and recreational space, and reunite a neighborhood long divided by this Robert Moses relic. I join my colleagues in calling on New York State to provide funding for this vital project and am deeply grateful for their sustained leadership."
