Read original - Not just for the birds:
Brooklynites have long known the rag-tag nature of Floyd Bennett Field.
Before the recent opening of the Aviator Sports Complex, the field – one segment of Gateway National Recreation Area – was a patchwork of old runways and roads, weedy expanses and not much else, despite the fact that it is, among other things, a bird-watching paradise with over 330 species of birds nesting in the area.
All of that may change, however, if efforts by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) come to fruition. NPCA recently sponsored a design competition intended to get architects and designers thinking about how to reinvent the area, which was rated poor in a State of the Parks report released by NPCA in May.
Winners in the competition, which was put together by NPCA, the Van Alen Institute and the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, planning and Preservation, envisioned a very different environment, one which capitalizes on Floyd Bennett Field’s resources and reshapes them to make them more accessible to the general public.
“Designers from around the world rose to the challenge and presented imaginative plans that unified Gateway’s diverse landscapes and took into account its strong historical routes,” noted Van Alen Institute Executive director Adi Shamir.
For instance, the first prize winners – Ashley Scott Kelly and Rikako Wakabayashi – developed a design, entitled “Mapping the Ecotone” that invites strollers in to explore the area’s diversity, and also brings natural changes back into the area, which has gradually been losing its wetlands.
Kelly, a Brooklyn resident who has worked at Gateway, said that the design was intended to, “Consolidate a lot of different ecologies that happen across Gateway.” In particular, he said, the two designers had chosen to utilize “The tides and sea level rise because of global warming to make people recognize it is an issue.
“Because this place will probably e in the flood plain within the next 30 years,” Kelly added, “we were trying to make it a place that will still exist after sea level has risen a few feet.”
To that end, said Kelly, the designers had devised, “A series of jetties and piers that interact with the rising sea level to create a shifting wetland habitat that is then interspersed with land areas to play soccer or volleyball or other recreational activities.”
By marrying solid land, wetlands and the water, the two designers, said Kelly, were, “Trying to create a new sense of an urban park.” While, he pointed out, such city oases as Prospect Park and Central Park are “manicured,” the park envisioned by the duo for Gateway would, “Work with natural processes such as the tides and how wetland vegetation grows.”
But, the sole purpose of the design is not beauty. Besides crafting a plan that would showcase Gateway’s natural treasures, said Kelly, the designers hope that their proposal would actually, “Work toward reversing the loss of marshland in Jamaica Bay.”
To accomplish this, said Kelly, they envision cutting a channel that would, “Allow sediment to wash back into the bay, what the wetland needs to sustain itself,” and what it has been deprived of by, “The pavement and cement and berms that keep the natural processes from happening.
“Over the past 40 years,” Kelly stressed, “Jamaica Bay has lost about 40 percent of its wetlands. That’s quite dramatic.”
The design created by Kelly and Wakabayashi can be seen on NPCA’s website, www. npca.org/gateway, as can the designs of the other finalists: The second prize-winning “Reassembling Ecologies by North design Office, Toronto, Canada; the third place design, “Marks,” by Laurel McSherry, Terry Surjan and Rob Holmes of Virginia Tech, in Alexandria, Virginia; and three honorable mentions, “[Un]natural Selection” by Archipelago Architecture and Landscape Architecture, New York City; “Urban Barometer” by Christopher Marcinkoski and Andrew Moddrell of loopl8, Larchmont, N.Y.; and “H2grOw” by Frank Gesualdi and Hayley Eber of New York City. The six finalists were chosen from a field of 230 entrants from 23 countries. Of the 182 U.S. entries, exactly half, 91, were by designers from the tri-state area.
Those who go to the website can not only view the designs but vote on them, emphasized NPCA Regional Director Alexander Brash. “The designers have had their hot, the jury has narrowed the field, and now it is up to the American public to vote,” Brash said. “We hope that a transparent process, followed by extensive public input, will engage New Yorkers, regional residents and all Americans to ponder the park as it is, consider what it might be and encourage our elected officials to support a new vision for Gateway.”
Gateway is one of the country’s largest urban national parks, including not only Floyd Bennett Field, but also parts of Queens and Staten Island as well as a portion of New Jersey. Despite its size, it has been the victim of “Chronic funding shortfalls, resulting in crumbling buildings and threatened natural resources,” according to NPCA. While, said the group, over $92 million was authorized to restore Gateway at the time it was created, in 1972, that money was never appropriated.
“Letting thousands of acres with great potential for recreation to lie fallow is a sad waste,” contended Brash. “Now is the time, as the Park Service prepares for its centennial in 2016 and as New Yorkers reach for a greener city by 2030, for our Congress, city and state, to reinvest in Gateway and create an iconic national park that our region’s residents deserve and were promised.”
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