Pineapple Post #1
Welcome to Pineapple Street! Here's a mini-issue for a mini-kickoff.
A longstanding battle over a parking lot in Columbus Park is heating up.
Dozens of neighbors gathered for a rally over the weekend to push for the parking lot next to Borough Hall, used by judges based at the Brooklyn Supreme Courthouse, to be transformed into green space.
Judges using the space for parking is “purely selfish,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler told the crowd. “It is wrong for them to be using our park space as their parking lot, and so we are demanding they do the right thing.”
For over 60 years, State Supreme Court judges have parked in the concrete space at the corner of Joralemon and Adams streets. The judges have long argued that they need parking in close proximity to the courthouse for security reasons. Death threats “are not unusual things,” retired Brooklyn judge Abraham Gerges told The New York Times. (Years ago, Gerges was placed under the protection of an armed guard after an incarcerated person sought to place a “deadly voodoo hex” on him.)
Yet, as residents and neighborhood activists have contended, the lot sits on land that is technically mapped as city parkland. The redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn and influx of residential buildings has only deepened the shortage of public green space.
In 2024, Councilmember Restler and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso partnered with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) to conduct a study of the eight-acre, city-owned space. In a public survey of 174 residents, 86% of respondents said yes when asked if the judges’ parking lot should be repurposed.
Last May, after a series of meetings and public feedback, Reynoso and Restler presented a new plan for the park, with potential design ideas such as a playground, dog run, skate park and lawn space. Under the proposal, the judges’ parking lot would become a lawn and pavilion with a kiosk and public restrooms below it. Restler has so far locked in $21 million in city funding for the redevelopment.
Restler and Reynoso have also suggested alternative parking options for the judges, including a nearby Marriott hotel and Brooklyn Law School. The judges can “relocate their cars to any variety of options around the neighborhood,” Restler told the crowd at the rally.
Whether the judges will budge on the decades-long conflict remains an open question, but there’s certainly community momentum. As one student at the rally put it, “We need more outside time, people!”
Heights Happenings & other news
The Brooklyn Heights Association Dog Show will return on June 14. Proceeds will go to nonprofit Paws NY.
Seven Wonders Collective is having an opening party for their new Atlantic Avenue location on June 13. Shoppers can get a live illustration with any $100 purchase.
The Brooklyn Greek Festival is running now through June 7 on Schermerhorn Street.
The residents of Dumbo are fed up.
Last week’s big restaurant news: Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group is opening its first full-service restaurant in Brooklyn at the former Hotel Bossert on Montague Street. It’s set to open in 2028.
You really can find anything at a Brooklyn Heights stoop sale
That’s it for now! See you next time.
Love it
Truly who can park