Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Walt Whitman Park, Downtown Brooklyn, Shaping Up

The outlines of the oval surrounding the ornamental fountain (covered in green)  can be seen now in the middle of the 2.9-acre Walt Whitman Park in Downtown Brooklyn (next to the Office of Emergency Management on Cadman Plaza East).

The park is undergoing a $4.5 million transformation, which began in April 2010. The design also calls for more trees and a planted median at the Cadman Plaza East entrance. According to the Brooklyn Eagle, four Walt Whitman poems will be engraved in granite on the sides of the fountain, which will double as a children's sprinkler.

 The city gave the long-neglected park to the feds several years ago for use as a parking lot while the new federal courthouse was being built. In 2007, federal officials promised the city $2.5 million to fix the park up once they were done with it.

Work is expected to be completed spring of 2012 (see the Eagle for the rendering).

Walt Whitman Park is often called "Red Cross Park" because the OEM building was formerly the Red Cross building.

- Walt Whitman Park Shaping Up in Downtown Brooklyn
- Mountains of Soil at Walt Whitman Park 
- More Park Action in Downtown Brooklyn
- Walt Whitman Park Finally Loses Its Asphalt
- New Design Calls For 'Great Lawn,' Fountain

Photo by MK Metz

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any possibility of a BBQ there?

mcbrooklyn said...

Before the OEM moved in, we used to (unofficially) BBQ there all the time. That's totally over. The closest official BBQ area is in Fort Greene Park. Here's the list of all official BBQ areas in New York Parks:
http://www.nycgovparks.org/facilities/barbecue