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Curve fall
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch
cordoned off through 2021
BY COLIN MIXSON
Mind the arch!
The area beneath Grand
Army Plaza’s Soldiers’ and
Sailors’ Arch will be off limits
to locals until after a massive
restoration of the monument
wraps sometime in 2021, due
to the risk of falling debris, according
to stewards of Brooklyn’s
Backyard.
“At this point, the barricades
are expected to remain
in place until the restoration
of the arch is completed,” said
Deborah Kirschner, a spokeswoman
for meadow conservancy
the Prospect Park Alliance.
Alliance workers cordoned
off the area beneath the
126-year-old arch after a small
piece of mortar roughly twoinches
long fell from the monument
last December, Kirschner
said.
The rubble did not hit anyone,
but park keepers still
chose to restrict access to the
arch out of “an abundance
of caution,” according to the
spokeswoman, who said nothing
has fallen since the fi rst
piece of mortar.
Park stewards plan to kick
off a year-long, $9-million restoration
of the Civil War memorial
in 2020 , with funds that
Mayor DeBlasio dedicated to
the Alliance-led rehabilitation
last year.
The multi-million-dollar
revamp includes repairing
stonework throughout the ancient
arch, as well as replacing
its rooftop observation deck
and fi xing the iron staircase
leading to it.
Following the city-funded
repairs, locals will be able
BLOCKADE: Workers barricaded
the space beneath the Grand Army
Plaza arch, preventing pedestrians
from passing through.
Photo by Colin Mixson NO GROW
to enter the arch for the fi rst
time since leaders of the Puppet
Museum that formerly occupied
space inside it moved
their institution to Brooklyn
College in 2010.
The restoration project
also calls for sprucing up the
pavement around the arch,
and installing landscaping
and lights around the plaza’s
Bailey Fountain.
Workers last repaired the
arch, which turns 127-yearsold
on Oct. 21, in 1980, seven
years after the city designated
the structure a landmark, and
roughly four years after the
statue of Columbia — a goddess
like fi gure symbolizing
the United States — fell from
its sculpted chariot atop the
monument in 1976.
TWO TOWERS: Continuum Company bigwigs want city permission to build two 39-story, mixed-use towers a
stone’s throw from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Continuum Company
Bklyn Botanic Garden bigwigs double down on
opposition to Franklin Ave megadevelopment
BY COLIN MIXSON
These green thumbs are seeing
red!
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
bigwigs are doubling
down on their opposition to
a proposed Franklin Avenue
megadevelopment near the
horticultural museum, and
will send a rep to pan the plan
at the fi rst meeting of the public
review process its builder
must endure to get a rezoning
necessary to construct the
complex.
“Representatives for BBG
will be at the scoping hearing
... speaking out against
the proposed rezoning,” said
garden spokeswoman Elizabeth
Reina-Longoria. “We
strongly oppose any changes
to the existing zoning.”
Botanic Garden leaders
last year blasted plans for
Continuum Company’s development
— which then called
for erecting six buildings as
high as 37 stories with some
1,450 market rate and affordable
units between them on
the site of an old factory at 960
Franklin Ave. — citing concerns
about shadows it could
cast over the green space.
Continued on page 12
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