Brooklyn Bridge Park at 10: Transforming the Waterfront

Did you know that the site of Brooklyn Bridge Park was a bustling, working waterfront port in the 19th and 20th centuries? Thousands of longshoremen, boaters, clerks, and U.S. customs inspectors worked on ships and piers, and in warehouses and factories. After the Civil War, dozens of warehouses were built along the west side of Furman Street, and many timber bulkheads, piers, and factory foundations still lie beneath the Park.

While Brooklyn Bridge Park has only been here for a decade, extensive planning and community advocacy began in the early 1980s. The first section of Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 1, opened in March 2010. The Park has opened in phases since, turning a once abandoned industrial waterfront into a world-class park that welcomes over five million visitors a year.

This exhibit highlights the transformation of this formerly dilapidated waterfront into Brooklyn Bridge Park, one of the largest and most significant public projects to be built in New York City in a generation. Brooklyn Bridge Park at 10 offers snapshots of the design, construction, and creation of this vibrant 85-acre ecological landscape.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Over the years of the development of Brooklyn Bridge Park, many photographers, staff members, construction workers, landscape designers, and members of the community have contributed to the large collection of photographs that tell the story of the Park’s development, and the waterfront transformation.

ABOUT THE PARTNER

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, known as Brooklyn Bridge Park (BBP), is the nonprofit organization that plans, builds, maintains, and operates Brooklyn Bridge Park, an 85-acre sustainable waterfront park stretching 1.3 miles along Brooklyn’s East River shoreline.