A History of Brooklyn Bridge Park by Nancy Webster

Author:Nancy Webster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS036100, History/United States/New York, ARC010000, Architecture/Urban & Land Use Planning
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2016-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

ONCE THE DIFFICULT ISSUE of Manheim’s departure had been resolved, Tensie Whelan wasted little time in taking the reins of the Coalition, immediately introducing the board members to a ninety-day strategy that she had formulated for reestablishing the organization’s importance and credibility in the park movement. Whelan’s strategy focused on three key areas: campaigning, coalition building, and organizational development.

The most pressing task that Whelan faced was working with the Coalition board to redefine the organization’s purpose for existing, now that the LDC had been designated as the legal entity in charge of the design and development of Piers 1–5, and identifying the most effective strategy for achieving that purpose. Whelan was immediately impressed by the board’s tentative decision before her arrival to focus on the property between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges not covered by the LDC mandate, as well as the work that Gary VanderPutten and others had already done to document the impact of commercial development on the site.

“We led Tensie through the whole history of what we had done up till this point and how the inter-bridge area had been left out of the LDC plan and how we wanted to take it back,” remembers VanderPutten. “And she flipped through the book of images that I had done, and she said, ‘Who have you shown this to?’ I said, ‘We’ve shown it quietly. We haven’t gone out there and flooded the neighborhood with leaflets or anything. We’ve been pretty kind to the politicians.’ And she said, ‘All right, give me a month. I intend to pursue this. I just need to do some due diligence, and I’ll get back to you.’ ”10

A month later, Whelan reported back to the Coalition board with a list of resources that she would need to gain support for the organization’s vision of a public park between the bridges, including 1,000 copies of the original images from VanderPutten’s book, aerial views of the inter-bridge area, an artist’s depiction of a public park in the inter-bridge area, and a professional presentation of the assembled images.

VanderPutten recalls the decisive manner with which Whelan communicated her instructions: “She said, ‘Gary, I want pictures of the park area from the air. Rent a helicopter. I don’t care how you get it. I’m not paying for it. You figure it out. I need to have about a hundred slides of what the waterfront looks like right now. Just get it done. Don’t send me the bill.’ ”11

“The strategy I proposed was around several things,” explains Whelan. “The first was on showing the negative impacts of the Walentas development plans for the inter-bridge area. He wanted to cantilever out over the water this huge multiplex and shopping source. And if you did that, it would totally screw up the whole view plane of everything.

“And the other was to create a positive vision in its place,” she continues. “So we wouldn’t just be against something, but would be creating a Coalition for something. So we devised these tools of taking aerial

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