Bushwick Inlet Park Victory Clears Way for Williamsburg Riviera

bushwick inlet park, east river, kent ave, new york herald, waterfront, williamsburg

27 Jan, 2010 by New York Herald in Real Estate

Bushwick Inlet Park’s victory against TransGas sets the stage for a dramatic and much welcomed transformation on the changing Williamsburg waterfront.

The news that TransGas Energy has exhausted their appeals to build a powerplant on the Williamsburg waterfront is being high-fived by neighborhood boosters like Borough President Marty Markowitz, Williamsburg residents like Jane Pool, Assemblymember Joseph Lentol and Christine Holowacz of the Greenpoint Waterfront Association.  While expected after previous rulings against TransGas, it nonetheless puts the final piece of the new Williamsburg “Riviera” into stark relief.  From tentative approval of Rose Plaza near Kent and Division to the relatively positive response of the $1.5 billion dollar Domino Sugar complex, Williamsburg’s waterfront is  transforming itself rapidly into something unrecognizable just a few years ago.

Critics are calling it the Miami-fication of the once sleepy industrial North Brooklyn waterfront during very uncertain economic times, but at least this Bloomberg-era transformation includes plenty of consideration for community and outdoor space.   It wasn’t just neighborhood activists fighting TransGas, but many city officials as well, and in a few years a dirty, possibly toxic creek (that we’ve hopped the Kent Ave fence and fished in) will turn into something of a jewel for the neighborhood.  We couldn’t be more excited, and thankful.