For the past six months residents of Brooklyn Heights have expressed concern over the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) proposal to turn the community’s beloved Promenade into a six lane highway in an effort to repair the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. Members of the neighborhood have responded by banding together to protest the proposition in numerous ways including holding rallies, attending public meetings with the DOT, and handing out flyers, posters, and pins against the plan.
The Brooklyn Heights Association (BHA) has been heavily involved in this issue, introducing a plan produced by engineers they commissioned to the DOT to build a temporary parallel bypass to the BQE instead, and keeps a page on their website to track the progress of the plan as well as responses from local officials. This page is meant to keep measures taken by the BHA and the DOT accounted for and uphold transparency about which representatives have supported them and the community in their plead for a better plan. On January 12, 2019 the BHA held a rally on the Promenade and invited residents as well as officials. Taken from the page the BHA documented,
The large turnout at the rally on the Promenade with Comptroller Scott Stringer, Senator Brian Kavanaugh, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Assembly members Jo Anne Simon and Latrice Walker, reps from Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and City Council member Stephen Levin, the Brooklyn Heights Association, the Cobble Hill Association and A Better Way sent a strong message to the Mayor and DOT. They must allow meaningful community input; they must find an alternate plan, whether it is the parallel Highway solution the BHA presented to the DOT in November or any other plan which takes the health and well-being of ALL impacted communities into account.
The BHA highlights how important it is for officials associated with city planning to listen to the opinions of residents in the neighborhoods they are rebuilding. Residents within a community look out for each other as they are acquainted on a deeper personal level due to shared experiences and values. In Revolt of the Urbs: Robert Moses and His Critics Robert Fishman highlights how officials who do not consider the opinions of community members, such as Robert Moses, feel the wrath once members organize,
Saving the park for her children and her neighbors’ children was somehow more important than all Moses’s megahighways. Where Moses had asserted that “cities are created by and for traffic,” Jacobs asserted that they are created by and for neighborhoods, for the intense sociability, diversity, and complexity that only a pedestrian-oriented, densely built city can generate. (Fishman 129)
The BHA’s community driven dissent, which is rooted in a fear of the construction process polluting the air their children breathe and driving down neighborhood property values, puts Fishman’s assessment of Jane Jacobs’ argument in motion. The assembly of community members and neighborhood organizations to oppose the six lane highway mirrors the way Jane Jacobs protested against Moses’ proposal of a highway cutting through Washington Square Park in order to decrease traffic congestion, “Jacobs had been more a foot soldier than a leader in the actual battle, collecting petitions from her neighbors and speaking out at local rallies and the Board of Estimate,” (Fishman 128).
This post from the BHA’s Instagram account shows their Executive Director, Peter Bray, spreading the message against the DOT proposal and handing out flyers for residents and small business owners to hang in their windows. One flyer reads, “Fix the BQE Plan,” while a Halloween version reads, “No Highway to Hell,” in capital letters. This is a prime example of a neighborhood community standing up to their local legislature and holding power in numbers and communication. This signifies the message Fishman gets across when quoting Charles Abrams,
The revolt of urban people against the destruction of their values; of the pedestrian against the automobile; the community against the project; the home against the soulless multiple dwelling; the neighborhood against the wrecking crew; of human diversity against sub standardization. (Fishman 126).
The most prominent issue residents have with the replacement of the Promenade with the six lane highway is diminishing property values– especially for those who live on Columbia Heights and have their backyards facing the Promenade. Property values would decline if their view of the Manhattan skyline were to become obstructed and replaced with a chaotic construction project. This contradicts what Hilary Ballon writes of Moses’ view of the relationship between public works projects and property values in Robert Moses and Urban Renewal: The Title One Program, “His position was consistent with his consistent career-long view of public works as an engine of economic development: a civic investment in public infrastructure will drive up property values and ultimately make economic sense,” (Ballon 100). Though in the long run the renewal of the BQE may raise property values and residents would be subject to compensation from eminent domain, residents also worry of noisy machinery and air pollution.
Business owners in the area worry tourism in the historic district may decline if the Promenade is not a possible destination. This would impede foot traffic and lower sales. As Kenneth T. Jackson notes in Robert Moses and the Rise of New York: The Power Broker in Perspective, “New York has experienced a renaissance since 1975… tourism exceeded 40 million visitors per year… and real estate prices– perhaps the ultimate barometer of urban health in a capitalist society– reached levels unequaled in any city in the history of the world,” (Jackson 68). Community members fear the DOT’s project proposal would diminish Brooklyn Heights’ reputation as a tourist site and declining property values would dwindle the neighborhood’s allure, affluence, and exclusivity. Would a movement such as this one be possible in a neighborhood with lower property values and residents who do not have the financial privilege to take time away from work and organize?
Much of the BHA’s outreach is done through their website and social media. There is an online petition where anyone is free to sign and support the Brooklyn Heights residents endeavor in challenging the DOT. With the internet almost always at the reach of our fingertips, one might ask: In what ways, if any, has the invention of the internet allowed the public to challenge their representatives and voice their opinions? Depending on factors such as internet access and social influence– whose voice gets heard and whose doesn’t?
Though the BQE must be repaired soon no one has proposed a solution which appeases both the residents of Brooklyn Heights as well as the DOT. The BQE is an integral part of facilitating traffic through the city and a shutdown of the expressway would undoubtedly lead to the congestion of roads. Since many New Yorkers from neighborhoods all across the city use the BQE everyday, should only the opinions of Brooklyn Heights residents be heard as to whether the BQE should be or should not be renewed in the most time efficient way?
Fishman accurately assesses the fate of the Promenade, “As the metropolitan region outgrows its aging infrastructure and bold new initiatives are called for, a place must be found for Moses as well as for his critics,” (Fishman 129). Whatever the golden blueprint may be, local officials as well as community members will both have to be integral elements in facilitating the fix.
