CLOSED FOR CONSTRUCTION: Workers shuttered an Eastern Parkway entrance to the station to accommodate
the renovations. Photo by Colin Mixson
COURIER L 20 IFE, JAN. 18–24, 2019 M B G
BY COLIN MIXSON
Contractors this month kicked
off a two-year-plus project to install
elevators and make other
handicap-accessible improvements
to Prospect Heights’s
Eastern Parkway–Brooklyn
Museum subway station.
Workers with the state-run
Metropolitan Transportation
Authority on Jan. 7 closed an
entrance to the 2- and 3-train
station on Eastern Parkway
opposite the Brooklyn Museum,
ahead of installing new
stairs and railings compliant
with federal accessibility laws
as part of the 26-month makeover’s
fi rst phase, which is set
to wrap in September, according
to Authority spokesman
Andrei Berman.
Contractors also cordoned
off the Prospect Heights–
bound Eastern Parkway Service
Road between Washington
and Underhill avenues to
use as a staging area for construction,
which required the
elimination of several parking
spots and narrowing the
traffi c lane on that block.
Department of Transportation
documents show the staging
area is permitted through
March 21.
But a worker at the site on
Jan. 9 said contractors would
obtain additional permits as
necessary to use the block beyond
the current expiration
date.
The sudden arrival of construction
outfi ts came as a
surprise to some locals who
live along that stretch of the
Service Road, however, one of
whom accused the Authority
of giving no notice of the renovations.
“It would have been nice
to know,” said Heather Paul,
a 40-year resident of Eastern
Parkway’s Turner Towers.
A doorman at her building
told this reporter he handed
out fl iers to residents in advance
of the project, but Paul
claimed she never saw or received
any such notices.
Berman assured that the
Service Road’s traffi c lane,
while narrower, would be
open to vehicles at all times
throughout construction,
but barricades made of caution
tape and traffi c drums
completely blocked off an entrance
to it near Washington
Avenue when this reporter
stopped by, forcing a United
Parcel Service employee to
park his truck on the avenue
and walk packages to their
fi nal destinations.
“They wouldn’t let me go
through,” said the delivery
man, who declined to give his
name, citing company policy.
A contractor with the Authority,
who also declined to
give his name, said workers
at the site closed the roadway
to ensure their safety,
but Berman only reiterated
his claim that the Service
Road would remain open to
vehicles when told about the
blocked entrance to it from
Washington Avenue.
Future phases of the yearslong
station renovation call for
installing a street-to-mezzanine
elevator on the Brooklyn
Museum side of the hub, along
with two more lifts from the
mezzanine to both the Brooklyn
and Manhattan-bound
subway platforms, and new
elevator-machine rooms and
handicap-accessible boarding
areas outside the lifts, Berman
said.
It’s going down
MTA installing elevators at
Brooklyn Museum station