The people of this city have access to far too few public parks and open spaces.
We all should care when anyone tries to remove parkland. And we should be doubly worried when the institutions that are part of the “public trust,” and are supposed to oversee our public lands, simply nod, go along for the ride and let it happen. The Tobacco Warehouse is the most recent case in point.
The Tobacco Warehouse is a beautiful, 25,000-square-foot, Civil War era, open-air structure that is landmarked and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is located in Brooklyn Bridge Park in the Fulton Ferry Historic District. It was built around 1860, and in its heyday, it stored more than two-thirds of all the tobacco that came into New York.
As times changed, it fell into disuse, and twice during the last 40 years, community and civic organizations have stepped forward to save the Tobacco Warehouse for public use. After its roof deteriorated and collapsed, it was stabilized as an open architectural ruin and serves as a unique outdoor urban space with magnificent views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River. It is one of the few surviving remnants of Brooklyn‘s mercantile waterfront history.
The wonderful sense of place created by the thick brick walls and the open sky and Brooklyn Bridge above makes whatever happens inside significant and magical. Over the years, it has been the site of scores of free public programs and has provided critical space to many small cultural groups and other organizations. For many of these struggling groups, the Tobacco Warehouse has provided an opportunity to perform before the public.
It was recently learned that the Tobacco Warehouse had been taken off the park map by various agencies and handed over to a single entity, for free, for private development. This was all done virtually in the dark, despite an established public planning process for Brooklyn Bridge Park.
In a case still pending in Federal Court, three groups, the Brooklyn Heights Association, the Fulton Ferry Landing Association and the New York Landmarks Conservancy, sued to have the Tobacco Warehouse put back where it belongs – as protected parkland. The focus of the lawsuit is transparency and the National Park Service‘s failure to require New York State to follow the federal law required to remove parkland or, as the process is known, to “convert” parkland to nonpark status. Political interference has played a largely unseen and negative role in this process.
But why should anyone other than the residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the warehouse care what happens?
It’s simple: Parkland is protected so that everyone can enjoy it without having to pay the price of a ticket. It doesn’t matter if the private developer or organization has the best intentions. The public loses out when parkland goes from “play for free” to “pay to play.”
It’s more disturbing when the very institutions that are supposed to protect our public lands – such as the National Park Service and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation – do not follow the guidelines required by the law. If we allow this to happen to the Tobacco Warehouse, what kind of precedent does that set? Which piece of parkland will be the next to be ripped from the public domain?
The math here is easy. It’s basic subtraction – giving the Tobacco Warehouse to any organization takes away parkland that is, by right, the public’s. We believe that the Tobacco Warehouse site should continue to be used as an outdoor venue for free public events. As a matter of fact, we’d like to see its use expanded, for example, by creating a temporary skating rink in the winter. There are also plenty of examples of public performance or cultural spaces in parks. Since 1954, Joseph Papp‘s Delacorte Theater in Central Park has been offering free theater to the public, as has the Riverside Shakespeare Company, which performs Shakespeare works in many outdoor locations around New York City.
There is much more at stake here than the preservation of an architectural and historic gem. Open space is a more precious commodity now, and we need to preserve every bit that we’ve got. Brooklyn has less parkland than the rest of New York City. We should not allow our public lands to be reduced. We need to hold those institutions charged with protecting public property accountable.
Jane McGroarty is president of the Brooklyn Heights Association.
Be Our Guest column is an occasional feature that will focus on important issues affecting our communities.
