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Dumbo-based Bjarke Ingels Group unveiled its proposal to turn the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway triplecantilever
into a new park called the BQP.
BQE going green?
Architectural fi rm unveils large-scale park proposal
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Call it the BQP!
A world-famous architecture
firm has proposed to
turn the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway into an ambitious
10-acre park on top of
a capped highway, calling it
the Brooklyn-Queens Park
— or BQP.
Architects with the Dumbobased
Bjarke Ingels Group
on April 2 released a plan —
which they produced pro-bono
— to build a six-lane highway
along the back of Brooklyn
Bridge Park on Furman
Street at ground level, and cap
it off in order to build a new
park on top.
The designers proposed to
spare the beloved Brooklyn
Heights Promenade and repurpose
the existing cantilever
into either a tiered park —
similar to the “ Tri-line ” park
idea proposed by Heights local
Mark Baker — or demolish
the two lower levels and recycle
the debris into an artificial
cliff side if the aged structure
proves too expensive to retain,
according to the planner spearheading
the proposal.
“We would be able to use
the BQE rubble to create a
newly-reconstructed cliff side,
PLUS: BQE TOWN HALL
ERUPTS OVER MAYOR’S
‘EXPERT PANEL’
FIXING
the BQE
naturalized, with Americans
with Disabilities Act ramps,
bringing you down and connecting
from the Brooklyn
Heights Promenade to Brooklyn
Bridge Park in a way that
it hasn’t been for a long time,”
said Jeremy Alain Siegel.
The new park could also allow
for Mayor de Blasio’s beloved
Brooklyn-Queens Connector
to run along the lowest
level, next to a two-lane Furman
Street for cars, as well
as an indoor parking garage
underneath the promenade,
renderings show.
Engineers from the firm’s
partner organization Arcadis
deemed that theirs is the most
straightforward way to deal
with the reconstruction because
builders would only
have to construct a new
roadway once without having
to take it back down afterwards,
and the road would
be at ground level instead of
the city’s proposed 50 feet
SEE PAGE 15
height — possibly making it
a cheaper and faster process,
said the architect.
“We think that we could
very likely do this at the same
or a reduced timetable and also
at the same or reduced cost,”
he said.
Siegel and his team are considering
extending the park to
the Cobble Hill trench section
of the roadway at Atlantic
Avenue, which could even
allow for a future walkway
from Brooklyn Bridge to Red
Hook if the city decides to cap
that trench, according to the
Brooklyn Heights resident.
“If you were able to do that
you would be creating a linear
park that connects you
from the Brooklyn Bridge all
the way to Red Hook, which
would be quite an amazing
thing,” Siegel said.
The firm’s founder, Bjarke
Ingels, will be moving to the
Heights soon, according to
Siegel, so he could end up
Bjarke Ingels Group
having his own company’s
creation in his backyard.
The only difficulty with
their plan is that the city
agency would have to go beyond
its remit and partner
with the state and Brooklyn
Bridge Park, but Siegel believes
that a plan as convincing
as theirs could gather enough
public support and momentum
to spur the departments
into action and overcome
bureaucratic hurdles.
“They have a critical life
safety on their hands, they
want to make sure the whole
thing doesn’t get snagged in
approvals and coordinations
and so they’ve been trying to
stay as much in DOT rightof
way and DOT jurisdiction
as possible,” he said. “If people
can really come around to
that idea then that coordination
will not be such a headache,
it will be something that
is demanded and something
that has to happen.”
The proposal can accommodate
the same amount of
traffic that the department
planned for, but may be able
to reduce the road to four lanes
if traffic decreases as a result
of new statewide policies, according
to a report by a Tristate
research organization.
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