Cardwell, Diane. “When Parks Must Rely On Private Money.” New York Times 07 Feb. 2010: 1. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Oct. 2012.
Diane Cardwell is a Business Day reporter for The New York Times covering energy. In this article she talks about how the Brooklyn Bridge Park is still lacking the money it needs to completely finish the project. The park has a $350 million construction budget and is still short $125 million. It also need $16 million each year for operational and maintenance cost. The government doesn’t want to pay for the rest of the money so they’re stagnant with their say in what they want to offer financially. From the looks of it, the park will need to rely on donations since the government cannot afford to pay for it. The park will also have to be self maintaining and have those in the community pay for it’s attractions. This has led to public disapproval but many other parks are also self sustaining with attractions and restaurants in it. Community activists and elected officials who fear that developers could turn what should be a public amenity into a private backyard for wealthy homeowners have accelerated efforts to block more housing. Daniel L. Squadron, a first-term Democratic state senator who represents the area, has suggested that the city instead dedicate to the park any increased tax revenues from rezoned properties within four-tenths of a mile.
Cardwell is simply just trying to show the public that the park is in a financial obstacle. There is some bias since it seems she’s trying to appeal to the public to help or come up with ideas in order for this park to continue with it’s constructions. I think she does a good job of showing both sides. She lays out the concerns of some people but also those who have hope and are coming up with plans. She however doesn’t have a good variety of people she got comments from since they were mostly from the higher ups. It might have been more interesting if she asked the community for some ideas. A weakness is that I feel like she talks a lot about other parks and green areas which wasn’t really necessary for the article. This information will be helpful for our project since we now know that Brooklyn Bridge Park does not have enough funding so when go we can ask if the money needed has decreased and look at how the park plans to self sustain itself.
Yes, interesting. Be sure to follow up on how things have changed since 2010. Also, information on other parks will be useful for comparative purposes and setting BBP in a larger context.