• Pier 1 (Open)
• Pier 2
• Pier 3
• Pier 4
• Pier 5
• Pier 6 (Open)
• Fulton Ferry Landing (Open)
• Brooklyn Bridge Plaza
• Empire Fulton Ferry
• Main Street (Open)
• John Street
• The Design
• Site History

Brooklyn Bridge Park

Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre post-industrial waterfront site stretching 1.3 miles along Brooklyn’s East River edge. The site stretches west in an arc from the Manhattan Bridge, through the Brooklyn Bridge and south along the East River to the upland area of Pier 6 and Atlantic Avenue. The park’s boundaries are Jay Street to the north, Atlantic Avenue to the south, Furman Street to the east and the East River to the west. The site is long and narrow with a crenulated edge formed by the piers.

The park, designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, includes Piers 1-6, Empire Fulton Ferry Park and the existing Main Street Park. In addition, two historic properties, the Civil war-era Empire Stores and the Tobacco warehouse, will be integrated into the park.

The park will provide green space for active and passive uses including playing fields, sport courts, playgrounds, civic lawns, and running and bicycle paths. A calm water area is planned for kayaking and canoeing.

Construction of the park began in January 2009, with the first six acres of the park opened in March 2010 at Pier 1 including the park’s first waterfront promenade, lawns, a playground and the “Granite Prospect.” Nearly 7 acres of park land on Pier 6 was opened in June 2010, and an additional 3.5 acres of parkland on Pier 1 and 1.4 acres of parkland on the Pier 2 uplands will be opened in Summer 2010.

Park Planning History

Brooklyn Bridge Park was the subject of extensive planning and community advocacy for over twenty years. After the close of its cargo operations in 1984, the Port Authority announced plans to sell the piers for commercial development. That action caused a re-evaluation of the site's value as a public resource. In 1998 the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront Local Development Corporation was created to undertake a public planning process for Brooklyn Bridge Park. The result of that effort was the September 2000 Illustrative Master Plan, which presented a conceptual framework for a waterfront park.

On May 2, 2002, Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) dedicating state and city funding for the park's construction and providing for the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation (BBPDC) to oversee the design and construction of the park. An important mandate of the MOU was that, once built, the park is required to be economically self sufficient with respect to its own ongoing maintenance and operations. Therefore, revenue producing development is a necessary component of the project to support its annual maintenance and operations.

In 2004, BBPDC hired the landscape architecture team of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates to lead an intensive planning process and prepare a master plan for Brooklyn Bridge Park. In 2005, the Master Plan was released, environmental reviews for the project were completed and the General Project Plan was approved (and subsequently modified in 2006 and 2010). Ground was broken on the park in February 2008.  Piers 1 and 6 opened to the public in the first half of 2010 and immediately following, a new entity, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, known as Brooklyn Bridge Park, was established to continue planning and construction, and to maintain and operate the park.