Cardwell, Diane. “State Agrees to Let the City Finish Brooklyn Bridge Park.” New York Times 10 Mar. 2010: A24. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Oct. 2012. < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/nyregion/10park.html?_r=0>
Diane Cardwell is a New York Times reporter who covers the Business Day section of the newspaper. During fellowship at Stanford University, she studied urban planning, media, and the fine arts. In this article, she discussed the change in leadership in the development of the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Initially, the state government was in charge of the planning, but later on, there had been conflicts on who should be in charge. City officials were worried that financial troubles on the state level would delay the project’s completion. At the same time, the state did not want to easily give up the project. In the end, an agreement was made to allow city officials to finish the Brooklyn Bridge Park, yet state officials would still have a large influence over planning developments.
The article relates to the Brooklyn Bridge Park project because it discusses the economic concerns behind the Brooklyn Bridge Park development. According to Cardwell, there are still other financial troubles in the city level. For instance, housing plans for around the park are facing opposition due to the financial reasons. Surprisingly, city officials are hoping to build a floating pool and ice skating rink in the park. Overall, Cardwell questions the sustainability of the park in relation to the economic aspects. She also intends to inform the residents of New York City about the current economic conditions of the plans in store for the Brooklyn Bridge Park. However, the slant of her article is that it provides more of the state’s opinion rather than that of the city’s. Therefore, a weakness of this article is the lack of interviews on city officials. Another weakness to the article is the lack of public opinion. Clearly, residents around the neighborhood would be concerned about the housing projects that are being brought up. For instance, the projects may encourage gentrification because of the emerging projects that are in store for the park. A strength of this article is the background information of the park’s development because it helps to inform readers of the reasons behind the concerns of the plans. Overall, it seems that Cardwell is concerned about the city’s ambitious plans for the Brooklyn Bridge Park despite the financial problems surrounding them.
This annotation is written very well, as it briefly summarizes the article and points out weaknesses, strengths and potential bias. However, because the article mentioned discusses the conflict between city and state governments in terms of redevelopment project control and the relating financial costs, how could the proposal of real estate development impact the residents in the surrounding neighborhoods if lawmakers decide to approve it? It may be possible to elaborate on the social component of sustainability indirectly being talked about in the article (since it’s only a small portion of the article, a sentence on it should suffice).
That is a great question that you have proposed. The article does not mention about concerns for the residents around the park. Thus, failing to address the opinions of residents would be considered a weakness to this article. However, based on my reading of the article, housing projects would encourage gentrification as people would be attracted to the various projects that are emerging out of the Brooklyn Bridge Park (if these projects were to be successful).
Be sure to follow up on how things have changed since the article was published.