Hundreds crammed into Plymouth Church on Wednesday night to hear about a series of proposals, which turn to innovative solutions as an alternative to the city’s contested reconstruction plans.
Under the proposal, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) would convert Furman Street into a new six-lane roadway that would be decked over. This would be done through a lane-by-lane deconstruction and reconstruction approach. BQE traffic would be rerouted to that new expressway, and the new landscape would allow BIG to create sprawling green spaces extending Brooklyn Bridge Park. Furman street could also be incorporated as a corridor for the city’s proposed BQX streetcar, if there’s a desire for that, Siegel noted.
Meanwhile, the triple-cantilever structure could be repaired and turned into a linear park, which Siegel notes is similar to the tri-line proposal suggested by Brooklyn Heights resident Mark Baker. If the structure is too damaged, the rubble from its deconstruction could be ground up and reused to create a “stabilized slope” from Furman Street up toward the promenade that would feed into the creation of new parkland. A “menu of ideas” is possible here, Siegel said.
THE TRI-LINE 