Can Brooklyn gentrify the right way?

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 20:58:00 +0000

When Jay-Z takes the stage to open the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn this September, the show will be more than a homecoming for the hip-hop superstar from the borough’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

The christening of the arena, part of the Atlantic Yards complex under construction between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, will mark a milestone in a transformation of downtown that began eight years ago, when the Bloomberg administration instituted a series of zoning changes with the goal of spurring development. The city also invested nearly $300 million in local streetscapes and other improvements and teamed with the state to build Brooklyn Bridge Park, a necklace of green along the East River that opened two years ago.

Brooklyn Bridge Park (Credit: Brooklyn Bridge Park)

Remaking Coney Island

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 12:00:00 +0000

A “new” Coney Island exists — if only on paper, in developers’ colorful renderings of bustling boulevards and in lengthy rezoning plans, The Brooklyn Bureau reports.

In 2003, New York City rolled out a 30-year plan to remake the once-grand beachfront on the southwestern tip of Brooklyn.

From the early 1800s through the early 20th century, Coney Island was widely regarded as the world’s greatest urban amusement park. Though Coney Island’s amusement zone has shrunk with every passing decade since the Great Depression, the area remains a relatively popular destination — nostalgic, easily accessible and cheap.

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Can Brooklyn gentrify the right way?

Remaking Coney Island