Squash court coming
to Bklyn Bridge Park
GET YOUR RAQUET READY:
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 2 will
soon have its own regulation-size
public squash court, according to
meadow leaders.
Scooped out! Public Squash NYC
COURIER LIFE, D DT EC. 14–20, 2018 3
DIFFERENT FLAVOR: Brooklyn Bridge Park is kicking the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory out of its space at the
Fulton Ferry Landing to make way for a new outpost of Ample Hills Creamery. File photo by Allyse Pulliam
BY JULIANNE CUBA
Time is quickly melting away
for this beloved creamery!
The owners of the Brooklyn
Ice Cream Factory in
Brooklyn Bridge Park must
close their store inside the historic
fi reboat station at Fulton
Ferry Landing by the end
of the year, after green-space
stewards handed the keys to
the property to the folks behind
another borough scoop
shop, Ample Hills Creamery.
“They made a choice, I have
until the end of this month to
vacate,” said Mark Thompson,
who owns the Dumbo creamery
with restaurateur Buzzy
O’Keefe of the famous River
Cafe next door.
News of the Factory’s imminent
end came as a cold slap in
the face to dozens of fans of the
creamery at the Dumbo end of
the park — which opened in
2001 back when the city’s Economic
Development Corporation
operated the station —
many of whom left comments
lamenting the change on an
Instagram post announcing
its closure.
“Wait just one minute! I always
get ice cream, even got
my friends hooked,” Instagram
user Cetera D. said.
The long-time ice-cream
vendor’s exit will make way
for the arrival of a larger
Brooklyn Bridge Park outpost
of the ever-expanding,
borough-based Ample Hills,
which will ditch the tiny concession
stand it currently operates
at the other end of the
meadow on Pier 5 and set up
shop inside the fi reboat station.
Green-space leaders chose
Ample Hills after this summer
issuing a request for proposals
from vendors interested
in moving into the station, according
to park bigwig David
Lowin.
Thompson submitted a proposal
to keep his shop operating
in the space, but said he
was told to make a better offer
than what he initially proposed,
before ultimately getting
the boot.
“They asked me if I would
be willing to up our offer,
we weren’t really in the ball
game,” he said. “They chose to
go in a whole other direction.”
Brooklyn Bridge Park head
Eric Landau said he and fellow
leaders of the semi-private
Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation,
which oversees the
lawn, are trying to fi nd another
space in the sprawling
meadow for Thompson and
O’Keefe’s beloved sweet spot,
noting that the Pier 5 stand
Ample Hills will soon vacate
is among the options.
But Thompson called that
offer a joke, because the booth
is roughly a quarter of the size
of his current station setup,
making it impossible to employ
his dozens of employees
and churn out the freshly
made frozen stuff his creamery
is known for.
“I said I’m not interested. It
barely fi ts two employees and a
scooping freezer,” said the coowner,
who also runs a Greenpoint
location of Brooklyn Ice
Cream Factory. “We made everything
on the premises.”
Ample Hills will open its
creamery in the fi rst fl oor of
the fi rehouse station, according
to park reps.
Park offi cials also tapped
restaurateurs Alex and Miles
Pincus, the men behind the
fl oating restaurant Pilot
aboard a boat that docks at the
park’s Pier 6 in the warmer
months , to open another seasonal
cafe and bar in the outdoor
area outside the fi rehouse
station, which will feature additional
seating on the deck of
another vessel — the restored
New York City Fire Department
boat, the Governor Alfred
E. Smith — that they will
dock at the site.
Ample Hills and the Pincus
brothers each received 10-year
leases with three-year renewal
options for their new spaces,
according to park reps, who
said both operations are set to
open by summer 2019.
BY JULIANNE CUBA
Prep-are to get squashed!
Brooklyn Bridge Park
will soon boast its own public
squash court, according
to leaders of the waterfront
green space.
Meadow stewards are
teaming up with do-good
athletes from Public Squash
NYC to install an all-glass
singles court at the site of one
of the six handball courts at
the meadow’s Pier 2, which
also features basketball and
shuffl eboard courts, as well
as a roller rink, according to
the president of the semi-private
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Corporation, which oversees
the lawn.
“We’re really excited
about a relationship that we
are developing with a nonprofi
t called public Squash
NYC,” Eric Landau said at
a Dec. 5 corporation board
meeting.
The park keepers wanted
to bring the game to Brooklyn’s
front yard after they
visited another public squash
court that opened in April in
Manhattan, which is currently
the only regulationsize
facility of its kind in the
fi ve boroughs — and in the
country, according to Landau.
“We went and visited it
and were kind of blown away
by it,” he said. “It’s to provide
yet another amenity in the
park. There is only one other
place we know of in the country
where there is a free public
outdoor squash court, we
are working to do the same
thing here.”
Park leaders will also offer
free clinics operated by
Public Squash NYC workers
at the court when it opens,
Landau said. The classes,
which will be geared toward
under-served youngsters,
will be similar to those the
green space hosts for kids
looking to improve their basketball
game, he said.
“It will be free and open to
the public — free clinics for
anyone who walks up,” Landau
said.
One board member said
meadow leaders should also
fi nd a partner organization
willing to donate racquets
and other equipment needed
to play the sport, so those
kids who can’t afford to buy
their own gear can still play.
“Make sure some of those
kids get their own racquets,
so they can come back and
use the courts on their own,”
said Susannah Pasquantonio,
who works for Brooklyn
Heights Assemblywoman Jo
Anne Simon.
Park honchos and cops
this spring beefed up the police
presence at Pier 2, after
its various play spaces drew
so many teens to the meadow
in April 2017 that authorities
had to forcibly evacuate the
area.
And in 2016, some locals
demanded Brooklyn Bridge
Park leaders replace one of
Pier 2’s basketball courts for
a tennis court, claiming the
hoops drew too many “criminals”
to the green space.
But trading a handball
court for a place to play the
famously preppy game of
squash — which is played
similarly to handball, but
with racquets — had nothing
to do with the crowding problem
Landau said his staff has
since gotten under control,
because youngsters can still
play whatever they want on
the pier.
“We had some isolated incidents
over a couple of years,
although it has been a couple
of years since there has been
an incident,” he said. “It’s
not a taking out of a handball
court, it is the transformation
of the handball court
to squash, you can still play
handball on squash.”
Park bigwigs hope to open
the new squash spot by summer
2019, if Public Squash
NYC leaders can raise the
cash needed to build it in
time, according to reps for
the group and Landau.
Bklyn Ice Cream Factory booted from long-time
Bridge Park location to make way for Ample Hills