A few months ago, motorists could drive across the asphalt here. Today it's a pedestrian zone linking the public space at the center of Grand Army Plaza to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch. Photos: Ben Fried

Gathering at the new public space beneath the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch at Grand Army Plaza this morning, city officials and community leaders celebrated the reclamation of asphalt for people at the crossroads of Brooklyn. One of the borough’s iconic places is finally a destination that people can get to comfortably, thanks to a slate of pedestrian and bike improvements NYC DOT completed this summer.

“For too long, Grand Army Plaza has been an 11-acre vicious circle of traffic,” said DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. The improvements include enormous new pedestrian islands at the north side of GAP, swaths of asphalt re-purposed as public space and resurfaced with sand-colored gravel, and new crosswalks and bike connections. Sadik-Khan said it added up to more than a football field of new public space, which will “unlock the gateway to Prospect Park.”

DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Behind her, left to right, are Council Member Tish James, Council Member Steve Levin, Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries, Prospect Park Alliance director Emily Lloyd, and State Senator Eric Adams.

Community leaders and civic groups began mobilizing for a safer, livelier, and more accessible Grand Army Plaza in 2006, with the formation of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, or GAPCo. A series of site visits and public workshops followed, defining the problems with GAP and outlining principles to fix it. GAPCo had a receptive audience at DOT, which began to phase in safety improvements in 2008 and revealed a more comprehensive plan in 2010, the fruits of which were on display today.

Grand Army Plaza is “Olmsted and Vaux’s brilliant solution for integrating Flatbush Avenue with Prospect Park,” said GAPCo’s Rob Witherwax. “Over the last 150 years, the balance tipped from park to street. We tried to tip it back.”

Council Member Tish James was an early supporter of GAPCo’s efforts and praised DOT’s implementation this morning. “I grew up in Park Slope, and Prospect Heights was my backyard,” she said. “It was always difficult to navigate these streets. You took your life in your hands. Today it was easy. Today it was calming.”

No one knows about all the organizing, ideas, and coordination that went into this project better than Witherwax, who ticked off the groups that came together to improve GAP: The Prospect Park Alliance, the cultural institutions who collaborate under the banner of the Heart of Brooklyn, three local community boards, the Park Slope Civic Council, and others. “DOT could just as easily have said, ‘Thank you, we’ll get back to you later,’ but they didn’t,” Witherwax said. “They made our vision happen.”

Before: The intersection of Flatbush and Vanderbilt.

After.

Before: There was no way to walk across the vortex at the northwest segment of GAP.

After.

The south side of Grand Army Plaza is seeing a lot more walking and biking since the most recent round of DOT improvements.

The substantial changes celebrated today probably won’t be the last public space improvements to GAP. Michael Cairl of the Park Slope Civic Council pointed out several underutilized areas that could serve as functional, active public spaces with a few simple design touches.

Then there’s the question of the Plaza Street bike lane, originally envisioned as a two-way, protected route functioning as a hub for safe cycling, branching out to other spokes in the bike network. Plans for the Plaza Street lane are currently in limbo after DOT’s initial unveiling in 2010.

GAPCo will also be working with the cultural institutions near GAP, the Greenmarket, and the Prospect Park Alliance on programming the newly-accessible public spaces. “We’ve made spaces where things can happen, which we didn’t have before. Now the question is, ‘What’s going to happen here?’” said Witherwax. “The table is open for suggestions.”

What would you do with this space?

Crosswalk on steroids: The pedestrian connection between the greenmarket area, shown during a recent food truck rally, and the central public space of Grand Army Plaza is about 100 times more visually prominent after the addition of these huge zebra stripes. Photos: Ben Fried

Earlier this week we showed some before-and-after shots of the pedestrian improvements on the north end of Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. Here we’ve got a batch of pictures from the south end, by the entrance to Prospect Park. These pictures are already a little out of date — DOT has put down an epoxy-and-gravel surface on the pedestrian area where the greenmarket sets up every Saturday — so keep in mind that this isn’t the finished product. I think you’ll still get a good feel for how much of a difference this DOT project will make for pedestrians and cyclists.

Thanks are due again to the folks at the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, who’ve been pushing for changes like this for five years.

Walking from Prospect Park to the Bailey Fountain in the center of GAP now looks like something you're supposed to do.

For cyclists, GAP is quickly becoming a much more functional hub, with bikeways leading into and out from the area in all directions. The addition of a greenway connection on Eastern Parkway, projected to be finished next year, will complete the spokes in the system. A two-way, circular protected bike route on Plaza Street (currently a one-way bike lane) would fill out the hub, though plans for that segment have been on hold.

The additions on the south end of GAP provide much improved bike connections between Plaza Street, Prospect Park West, and the loop road inside Prospect Park. Readers report that the new signal timing makes for slow bike trips across the south end of GAP — a shortcoming that can hopefully be addressed soon. Here’s an early look at the new stuff:

Chevrons point the way to and from the north end of the PPW bike lane.

The bike and pedestrian connections across Union Street.

A segment of protected bikeway, looking toward Plaza Street West and Union Street. We're hoping the traffic light pole anchored in the bike lane is a temporary construction measure.

The view looking the other direction, toward the Brooklyn Public Library.

Facing back toward Union Street again. The redesign routes westbound cyclists over an existing sidewalk. On a busy weekend afternoon, there was lots of foot traffic and bike traffic, and plenty of space to go around.

Large new pedestrian areas have added safe space for walking and imposed order on traffic at the intersection of Vanderbilt (with the cars queued up) and Flatbush. Photo: Ben Fried

Construction work is nearing completion at one of the summer’s biggest livable streets projects: DOT’s improvements for pedestrians and cyclists at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza. Spurred by the advocacy groundwork laid by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, the city has added huge new pedestrian islands on the north side of the plaza and created safer biking and walking connections on the south side, near the entrance to Prospect Park. All together, the changes make it much easier to walk to GAP’s central public space and navigate the whole area on foot or by bike. Here’s a peek at the pedestrian improvements on the north side.

Above is the intersection of Flatbush and Vanderbilt, looking north from one of the new pedestrian islands. Below is a similar angle, pre-makeover, grabbed from Google Street View.

Image: Google Street View

The view of GAP's northern end, looking east from the point where Flatbush Avenue enters the traffic circle, before the changes. Safe passage for pedestrians was non-existent. Image: Google Street View

The same view today, with a clear, direct path for walking. Photo: Ben Fried

The plan. Image: NYC DOT

Together with the walking and biking improvements to the south side of GAP (more on those later), the remake of the north side is making the central plaza a much more accessible public space. Photo: Ben Fried

Photo: Susan Kille

Construction is moving ahead on one of the summer’s blockbuster livable streets projects, the addition of new pedestrian and bicycle amenities at Grand Army Plaza. As often happens in Brooklyn, in the course of digging up the pavement the crew unearthed some remains from the previous incarnation of the street. Susan Kille posted this shot of old trolley tracks on Union Street, which were briefly exposed over the weekend.

Trolleys running on Union, Grand Army Plaza, and Prospect Park West were part of the surface rail network blanketing Brooklyn and much of Queens before streetcars exited the scene in the 1950s.

Doug at Brooklyn Spoke has a great series of shots from the era when trolleys plied PPW, there was nary a parked car in sight, and the sidewalks were more generous than they are today. It’s a fitting response to opponents of the Prospect Park West redesign who seem to think that preserving the street’s historic charm entails keeping the parking lanes exactly as they were in May, 2010.

Photo: Ben Fried

Construction has started on NYC DOT’s project to greatly expand the pedestrian zones at the north end of Grand Army Plaza. The result of a years-long community-based planning process led by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, these pedestrian improvements will reclaim a lot of asphalt and give people a much more direct walking route to the central public space at the heart of GAP. Construction of the pedestrian islands is slated to run through July, with new bike and pedestrian features on the south side of GAP scheduled for August [PDF]. Another feature in the original DOT plan for GAP — a two-way protected bike path on Plaza Street — has been postponed indefinitely.

The piece under construction right now is the “eastern wing” of the four-part pedestrian expansion:

Image: NYCDOT

New and expanded pedestrian islands and sidewalks on the north side of GAP will create safer and more direct connections to walk to the central plaza area. (This image comes from DOT's 2010 presentation on GAP and may not include minor changes to this part of the plan.)

Construction on a slate of pedestrian and bike improvements for Grand Army Plaza is scheduled to move forward this summer, NYC DOT announced this Saturday. The redesign includes a major expansion of the pedestrian islands at the north side of GAP and the addition of a two-way, protected bicycle connection linking Union Street to Eastern Parkway on the southern side. It does not include the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street shown in DOT’s 2010 presentation on this same project, which Community Boards 6 and 8 both approved last year.

DOT made its revised presentation Saturday at the Grand Army Plaza Coalition‘s annual meeting. It was an anniversary of sorts for GAPCO, a partnership between the area’s major cultural institutions and neighborhood residents, which formed in 2006 to make Grand Army Plaza a welcoming public space instead of a traffic vortex. Since then GAPCO has put together several public workshops and site visits, producing a conceptual blueprint for city agencies to work from [PDF].

Image: Google Maps

The big difference between last year’s DOT plan and this year’s is that the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street has been set aside until an unspecified date in the future. Plaza Street encircles most of GAP, and a two-way path would create a safe hub for cyclists to take the most convenient routes to and through the space. But after last year’s CB votes, some Plaza Street residents contacted the city saying the parking-protected bikeway would cause traffic back-ups, even though Plaza Street receives little traffic and is already just one lane wide.

So call it the NBBL effect: Despite the multi-year community-based planning process that informed last year’s presentation, and despite the community board votes in favor of it, DOT seems unwilling, for now, to stir the pot so close to the litigious and well-connected NIMBYs of Prospect Park West, who happen to have  U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer on their side.

The improvements scheduled for this summer are still significant, and they represent a major milestone in the campaign to make GAP more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. Starting in June and wrapping up in August, the city plans to build out these improvements, which Streetsblog reported on last April:

• On the north end of the plaza, northbound traffic on Flatbush and southbound traffic on Vanderbilt will cross at a greatly simplified X-shaped intersection. The pedestrian spaces that define the boundaries of the “X” will be much more generous and well-defined than the mish-mash of poorly-connected islands and striping that people navigate now. Walking to the central public space will be safer and simpler, especially if you’re approaching from Park Slope.
• The area between the arch and the central plaza will be set off with DOT’s epoxy-and-gravel surface treatment, seen on Broadway and other pedestrian reclamation projects. Physical barriers will be added to keep cars from illegally cutting across.
• On the south side of the plaza, pedestrian islands will be expanded and crosswalks will be added, making it easier to walk between Union Street, Plaza Street, and the greenmarket area. The greenmarket area will also be set off with epoxy-and-gravel and have physical barriers from traffic.

The bike improvements to be built out this summer should greatly improve east-west connections on the south side of the plaza and create better transitions at the northern end of the Prospect Park West bike lane. A new two-way, separated bike path will run from Union Street to Eastern Parkway, making bicycle access to Prospect Park, the GAP greenmarket, and Prospect Park West much improved.

The south end of the GAP plan (looking south toward the Brooklyn Public Library) expands pedestrian space and clearly sets it off from the asphalt expanse of the roadway. It also includes a two-way connection for bikes between Eastern Parkway and Union Street. Photo: Amy Sara Clark/Patch

Without the two-way Plaza Street lane, however, GAP won’t be as useful and convenient a hub for bicycling as it could be, and it’s hard to say when that missing piece will get filled in. NYC DOT downtown Brooklyn coordinator Chris Hrones said outreach to Plaza Street residents would continue, and that the city intends to pursue the unfinished part of the project at a later, unspecified date.

No one from the PPW opposition attended the meeting, but their presence was felt nonetheless. “DOT is excellent about coming to the community, presenting to the community, working with the community, and getting the proper sign-offs from the community,” GAPCO coordinator Rob Witherwax said in his introduction, praising DOT for being engaged on the project from the beginning. “For people who after the fact don’t like the result to say the process was bad is patently false.”

DOT will be taking the revised proposal before CB 6 and CB 8 (again) in the next few weeks. The full presentation will be online then. In the meantime, Amy Sara Clark at the Park Slope Patch has some photos of the plan shown Saturday.

With Brooklyn Community Board 6 unanimously approving DOT’s modifications to the Prospect Park West bike lane, the public process surrounding this project has passed another milestone. Including committee votes, last night marked the fourth CB vote in the last two years in favor of the PPW redesign or the city’s proposed changes to it. The process that led to those votes goes back even further, and it’s worth a reminder of just how long the idea of calming traffic and improving bike access on PPW has been bubbling up from local residents.

This clip from the Streetfilms vault recaps a public workshop held by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition in March, 2007. GAPCO had been organizing for a year already at the time of this event. Participants in a May, 2006 site visit concluded that “vehicles travel southbound from Grand Army Plaza into Prospect Park West at a high rate of speed.” Speeding and poor conditions for cycling on Prospect Park West had emerged as key concerns at the Park Slope Civic Council’s traffic and transportation forum that same year.

Participants at the 2007 workshop also identified the lack of multi-modal access to GAP as a problem. The final workshop report [PDF] offered this recommendation:

Improve access to the plaza and connect it into a broader circulation system for pedestrians, bicyclists, automobiles and transit users. Balance the user needs. Make sure bicycle lanes aren’t dumped into fast-moving traffic.

These efforts were initiated by community groups while Iris Weinshall was transportation commissioner. The city was not trying to “sell” the idea of calming traffic on Prospect Park West or improving bike access to the Brooklyn Public Library and the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket. Residents were trying to motivate the city to act on their concerns.

A few months after GAPCo published their workshop report, CB6 passed a resolution including a request that DOT study the implementation of a two-way protected bike path on Prospect Park West.

This is the process that Iris Weinshall, Norman Steisel, and Gibson Dunn attorney Jim Walden are seeking to discredit and circumvent by suing the city.

The walking, biking, and public space enhancements for Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza that DOT presented last night are now available online [PDF]. The top graphic shows the expanded pedestrian space and simplified intersection at the north end of the plaza, which will make walking to the center of GAP much more direct, pleasant, and safe. Here's what that space looks like now:

Image: Google Maps

Local activists have been organizing and advocating for years to make Grand Army Plaza a public space that lives up to its setting in the heart of Brooklyn. One of the coordinators of that campaign, Robert Witherwax of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, sent us this reaction:

Of our six tenets -- improved commercial opportunities, close the gap [between the park and the central plaza], buy back asphalt, rethink traffic flow, aesthetic improvements, and improved ped and bike access to and through -- this hits the last four squarely on the head.

We have called for a wholesale rethinking of the interplay between peds, bikes, and cars and the space devoted to each: DOT brought that...

And the fact that DOT can do this in their operational toolbox is extremely interesting. This is Brooklyn's version of Times Square.

With Prospect Park West slimming down to two lanes, there won't be so much asphalt to cross walking from Union Street or Plaza Street to Grand Army Plaza:

Note what appears to be a bicycle roundabout in the lower left. Click here to enlarge. Image: NYCDOT

The tan areas will be getting the epoxy-and-gravel surface that's been deployed at other DOT pedestrian projects. There will still be a lot of asphalt between the park and the plaza, but in general the pedestrian areas should look and feel more distinct and separate from the traffic areas. Here's what this part of GAP looks like now:

Image: NYCDOT

All those two-way bike segments planned for the south end will feed into a two-way, parking protected loop around Plaza Street. Together with the Prospect Park West two-way path and a potential two-way path on Eastern Parkway (part of a capital project that's taking the city forever to build), these changes will make Grand Army Plaza a safe, convenient, and very useful hub in Brooklyn's bike network, linking up with bike lanes on Vanderbilt Avenue and side streets heading into Park Slope. Implementation is slated to begin in August and would run through the end of 2010, according to DOT assistant commissioner Ryan Russo.

Image: NYCDOT

It's a complex project that really needs graphics to help you visualize it, but I don't have the plans just yet. Here's my bullet point description and a Google satellite view until DOT posts the full presentation online, which should happen later today.

• Image: Google Maps
  On the north end of the plaza, northbound traffic on Flatbush and southbound traffic on Vanderbilt will cross at a greatly simplified X-shaped intersection. The pedestrian spaces that define the boundaries of the "X" will be much more generous and well-defined than the mish-mash of poorly-connected islands and striping that people navigate now. Walking to the central public space will be safer and simpler, especially if you're approaching from Park Slope.
• The Plaza Street bike lane will be converted from a buffered, one-way counterclockwise path to a two-way, parking protected path, giving cyclists a safe and legal way to take the shortest routes around the plaza.
• The area between the arch and the central plaza will be set off with DOT's epoxy-and-gravel surface treatment, seen on Broadway and other pedestrian reclamation projects. Physical barriers will be added to keep cars from illegally cutting across.
  
• On the south side of the plaza, pedestrian islands will be expanded and five crosswalks will be added, making it easier to walk between Union Street, Plaza Street, and the greenmarket area. The greenmarket area will also be set off with epoxy-and-gravel and have physical barriers from traffic.
• There are several two-way bike connections planned for the south side, the general effect of which will be this: Anyone coming or going from Prospect Park West, the Prospect Park loop, or either end of Plaza Street will be able to bike safely and legally to any of those streets. Eventually a two-way path on Eastern Parkway, part of a separate capital project, will feed into this system. The plan also appears to include a small "bike roundabout" where PPW meets a two-way connection leading into the park loop (h/t @mikepstein for pointing that out).
  

Russo got a sustained round of applause after the presentation. Most comments afterward were of the helpful suggestion variety, although there were a few people who had qualms with narrowing traffic lanes or introducing new bike infrastructure. A few cranky individuals had come for the next agenda item -- the Prospect Park West bike lane -- and couldn't wait to air grievances. (For more on how that went, check out @mikepstein's twitter feed again.)

The advocates and public servants who are closest to the campaign for a better Grand Army Plaza seemed thrilled by the plan. Prospect Park Administrator Tupper Thomas said she loves the changes in store for the north side and reassured the crowd that she had worked with DOT and the Parks Department to make sure the project works well.

Robert Witherwax of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition -- the alliance of several community groups and local institutions formed in 2006 to advocate for public space enhancements -- called the plan "a huge step forward" in an email to Streetsblog.

We'll have more on this important development for Brooklyn's most iconic public space later today.

At a CB6 committee meeting last month, DOT's Ryan Russo presented plans to alleviate the Union Street tie-up by converting the parking lane between Eighth Avenue and Grand Army Plaza into a moving lane. For advocates of a lively, welcoming, and safe Grand Army Plaza, the proposal encapsulated the shortcomings of DOT's approach to the area: By trying to solve the traffic problem on Union Street, the agency would do nothing to address the public space problems at the plaza, and may end up exacerbating them.

The city has recently made some headway improving Grand Army Plaza for pedestrians and cyclists. New pedestrian islands and a short, separated bikeway connecting the Prospect Park loop to Plaza Street have enhanced safety. More is on the way. A two-way protected bike path is slated for Prospect Park West, and a long-awaited median expansion on Eastern Parkway leading straight to the plaza should, someday soon, improve walking and biking from Crown Heights.

Adding another lane of moving vehicles on Union doesn't seem to fit with these incremental improvements, especially when an alternative that would simplify traffic patterns -- converting the westbound travel lane to a second eastbound lane -- has already surfaced at public meetings. "There are so many better solutions," said Robert Witherwax of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition.

In three years, Witherwax and GAPCo have built a broad base of support for the idea that Grand Army Plaza can and should function as a much better public space -- one that feels like an extension of Prospect Park rather than a few green islands surrounded by streams of traffic. The Prospect Park Alliance, the Brooklyn Public Library, Community Boards 6 and 8, and the North Flatbush BID are among the coalition.

All the tweaks to the plaza, so far, have been consistent with the planning principles GAPCo and its partners have promoted. The problem, says Witherwax, is the city's piecemeal approach, which the Union Street proposal has cast into sharp relief. "DOT has been an excellent partner," he said. "It's not so much that what they have done, or are proposing, is bad -- it's that they aren't going far enough."

Witherwax is calling for a "buildable master plan" -- a blueprint that would help guide planning and transportation decisions throughout the plaza area according to consistent goals. "Once you have that structure in place, you can say what happens if you do X, Y, and Z over here," he said. But to date, he added, DOT has resisted the idea of a comprehensive plan.

The reinvention of Grand Army Plaza as a great public space could be a signature achievement on par with DOT's transformation of Times Square and Broadway. It's a complex project, to be sure. But with a second stimulus or a front-loaded transportation bill gaining steam in Congress, the opportunity to move forward could present itself soon. Shovel-readiness is key. Will New York be prepared with a plan to breathe some life into the heart of Brooklyn, or will we be caught flat-footed?

"Canopy," a plan submitted by a team of French designers, took people's choice in the "Reinventing Grand Army Plaza" competition, sponsored by the Design Trust for Public Space. It was also selected last month by competition jurors as one of two top designs.

"Canopy" is one of few submissions that actually connects the plaza with the park. Like last year's Grand Army Plaza Coalition proposal, it at least takes a stab at dealing with area-wide traffic management issues -- a major consideration for any workable redesign.

While raising the profile of the project and drawing the attention of thousands of Brooklynites, it's unknown how much of an impact the competition will have on the eventual design. The Brooklyn Paper reports:

"The contest wasn’t intended for a design to be constructed," sniffed Scott Gastel, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, which is conducting traffic studies as a first step in its own plan to fix the plaza.

"The competition has produced some very interesting concepts, which we will bear in mind as we continue to think about the future of Grand Army Plaza," he said. "We’re still looking into the designs [to evaluate their feasibility]."

Last Saturday, the opening of the Design Trust for Public Space's "Reinventing Grand Army Plaza" exhibit quickly transformed the plaza, normally devoid of any street life, into a vibrant public space. Visitors were welcomed with live music, a dance performance, food and exhibition tours. This photo set on Flickr has over 400 shots from Saturday's event. City Room reports:

Gone are the wasted expanses of concrete behind the arch, where ambulances used to lie in wait for traffic accident victims. The winning ideas include squaring the traffic circle to make more regular intersections, putting a canopy or elevated pedestrian walks over the plaza, creating a shelter for a year-round green market, adding a bike rental shop, and putting a visitor center at the subway stop.

The plaza, home to the city’s second-largest green market, close neighbor to four top Brooklyn attractions, and the occasional rooster, was done in by the car.

Residents in Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, the four neighborhoods it separates instead of unites, are hard pressed to figure out how to reach the Bailey Fountain and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch without becoming roadkill. The traffic whizzing around the plaza has been called “the only concrete and asphalt roulette wheel in the world.”

You can check out the designs of all 30 finalists here, and if you see one that you think promises to improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists, don't forget to give it your people's choice award vote.

Photo: The Design Trust for Public Space

This morning officials announced the winners of the "Reinventing Grand Army Plaza" competition, a contest that drew 200+ proposals for transforming the gateway to Prospect Park into a public space worthy of its landmark status. A jury composed mainly of designers, planners and community advocates selected four designs to receive cash prizes, while winnowing the entrants to a field of 30, to be displayed on-site through October 13. Members of the public will be able to vote for their favorites via text message, with results announced on October 8.

After the exhibit, the Design Trust for Public Space and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, along with NYC DOT and the Parks Department, will participate in a series of public workshops based on the top 30 designs, with the ultimate goal of composing a new plaza master plan.

Prize-winning designs are "Canopy" and "Please Wake Me Up!" (pictured) in a tie for first, "Urban Stripes" was awarded second place, and Brooklyn's Garrison Architects took third with "A Center for Brooklyn." Unfortunately, not every finalist made a serious attempt to address GAP's complex traffic issues, which will be essential to creating a lively and inviting public space. On the other hand, the guidelines do indicate that entries "did not have to be realistic."

In the second installment of his "Street Transformations" series (here's the first), Clarence Eckerson shows the progress underway at Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza. The package of pedestrian and bicycle improvements you see in the video was first unveiled by DOT last spring. Says Clarence:

As one gentleman said to me while admiring the new greenery and traffic islands in Grand Army Plaza, “Wow, sometimes government does work!” It’s easy to quickly forget how things were, but we here at Streetfilms aim to not let that happen. Check out these extraordinary before/afters; especially the new separated bike lane which safely transports riders from Prospect Park.

How'd we get here? Check out: Grand Army Traffic Survey, Reclaiming Grand Army, Minding the GAP.

What's next for this iconic public space? Some ideas are sure to surface from the Re-inventing Grand Army Plaza competition, which is set to review proposals this month.

The Grand Army Plaza Coalition (GAPCo) and The Design Trust for Public Space have launched a website for their "Ideas Competition" called Reinventing Grand Army Plaza, which is intended to generate new visions for the plaza's design. The jury will award three cash prizes to the winners, and along with other top entries will be exhibited in an outdoor exhibition at Grand Army Plaza later this year.

Grand Army Plaza is New York City's greatest unrealized asset. Home to powerful architecture, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch, the elegant Bailey Fountain, the entrance to Frederick Law Olmsted's greatest park, and a transit hub, the sum of these parts is emphatically less than the whole. Currently an underdeveloped public amenity, the redesign of Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza will invigorate surrounding communities, just as the re-conception of Manhattan's High Line set off an explosion of activity in West Chelsea.

Top submissions will be exhibited outdoors at Grand Army Plaza in the fall of 2008. Submissions will also inform the program for a new schematic plan for the Plaza, to be created in late 2008 in partnership with the New York City Departments of Parks and Recreation and Transportation.

Tell us what you think about Grand Army Plaza - join the online conversation. For questions about the competition, or to be added to the competition mailing list, send an email to: info@reinventingGAP.org.

Related

• Reinventing Grand Army Plaza: What Are Your Ideas?
• Grand Plans for Brooklyn's Iconic Public Space

Photo: Ethan Kent.

More and more, we're seeing grassroots, community-driven Livable Streets project gaining traction on the citywide level. Here's another example of just that:

Tomorrow, Tupper Thomas of the Prospect Park Alliance and Deborah Marton of the Design Trust for Public Space will be discussing the Reinventing Grand Army Plaza project on "The Leonard Lopate Show." Tune in from 12:00 to 2:00 pm at 93.9 FM or 820 AM. WNYC is also asking New Yorkers to weigh in on the Lopate web site:

Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza is the main entrance to Prospect Park, and it's been called New York City's answer to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. However, the space as it is used today is difficult to walk around, drive around, and is generally not very user-friendly. What do you like and dislike about the way Grand Army Plaza is currently used? What would you like to see changed?

Photo: Aaron Naparstek, Bailey Fountain, May 22, 2006.

The Grand Army Plaza Coalition, which recently won a grant from the Design Trust for Public Spaces, has launched an Ideas Competition for its Reinventing Grand Army Plaza project. If you want to participate, answer the following questions in full sentences, and email your responses by the end of the week to survey@reinventingGAP.org.

1. What is great about Grand Army Plaza?

2. What existing problems could be addressed by a Plaza re-design?

3. What potential uses or opportunities for the Plaza might a Plaza re-design incorporate?

Additionally, GAPco organizer Rob Witherwax writes:

Next week there is an important meeting of the Community Board 6 Transportation committee. Please try to attend:

WHEN: Thursday, 17 January 2008, 6.30 PM

WHERE: Prospect Park Residence, 1 Prospect Park West (at Union Street)

AGENDA: Discussion with representatives for the Department of Transportation on pending traffic calming request for Prospect Park West and 8th Avenue, and for decongesting Union Street approach to the Grand Army Plaza.

Photo: pianoman75/Flickr

The Grand Army Plaza Coalition (GAPCo) and the Design Trust for Public Space are launching an "Ideas Competition" called Reinventing Grand Army Plaza. Building on GAPCo's on-going effort to re-envision this historic Brooklyn crossroads, the Ideas Competition will solicit new, creative proposals for Grand Army Plaza's re-design. Top submissions will be exhibited in the summer of 2008 at the Brooklyn Public Library or the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

To document GAPCo's progress to date, the existing context of the Plaza and the competition's goals and aspirations, GAPCo is creating a Briefing Booklet for competition entrants and they want your thoughts, ideas, hopes, frustrations and visions for Grand Army Plaza represented in this publication. The briefing booklet will quote from responses to this questionnaire. Please answer the following questions by December 20, 2007.

1. What about Grand Army Plaza currently functions well?
2. What existing problems could be addressed by a Plaza re-design?
3. What potential uses or opportunities for the Plaza might a Plaza re-design incorporate?
4. Please include your name, organization/affiliation, neighborhood and contact information in your response.

For more information about this project, please visit: http://www.reinventingGAP.org. Email info@reinventingGAP.org with questions or to be placed on the competition mailing list.

Someone who is not a traffic engineer please reinvent me!

Top photo: Nakeya B./Flickr
Bottom photo: Aaron Naparstek

In the most recent issue of the Architect's Newspaper, Editor-in-Chief William Menking has some very enthusiastic things to say about the Grand Army Plaza Coalition's project, Rethinking Grand Army Plaza (download the proposal here) which was recently awarded a 2007-2008 Design Trust fellowship. Menking writes:

This past month I served as a juror on the Design Trust's latest funding round. We were presented with many well-crafted and smart proposals, and settled on two projects to fund: Closing the Gap: Rethinking Grand Army Plaza and Park Design for the 21st Century. The Grand Army Plaza Coalition's proposal to reroute the roads around the difficult and inaccessible traffic island-cum-monument is such a brilliantly obvious solution that one wonders why it hasn't been tried before. The roadbed between the plaza and Prospect Park will be closed and used on the weekends for a farmer's market, allowing pedestrians to actually access this beautiful space without having to cross many lanes of traffic. (This will all be accomplished without denying drivers access from Flatbush and Vanderbilt avenues and Eastern Parkway to Prospect Park West.)

You can download a PDF of the current issue of the Architect's Newspaper here.