Parks

A restored High Bridge will be open to commuting cyclists and pedestrians, but access time could be limited, officials said last week.

When I first met Brian McCormick, Milton Puryear and Meg Fellerath in the spring of 2002, they were picking up trash and planting tulips alongside a Brooklyn-Queens Expressway off-ramp in Cobble Hill. I asked them what they were up to and they told me they were working to create a waterfront greenway for Brooklyn -- a linear park running from Greenpoint to Red Hook. I didn't have the heart to tell them they looked like a gang of juvenile delinquents paying off 40 hours of community service for shop-lifting. Clearly, these people were either insane or visionary.

A tipster sends along this snapshot of the parking lot... I mean, sidewalk, outside the High Bridge Recreational Center prior to the meeting last night to discuss plans for the revitalized High Bridge. The talk inside, she says, "was much more encouraging" than the government employee parking situation outside.

This is a guest post by Susan Murray, author of the Urban Naturalist.

This Thursday will be the opening reception of "Livable Streets in Brooklyn," an exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library. There will be a presentation by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition (GAPco) about the community-driven process that has been underway to re-envision Grand Army Plaza. And the Department of Transportation will discuss its recently announced plans for bike and pedestrian improvements.

The Municipal Art Society of New York, City Council member Dan Garodnick, and Manhattan's Community Board 6 ran an intensive day-long workshop last Wednesday to develop a new vision for Midtown's inaccessible East River waterfront. On Sunday, MAS unveiled some of the results. From the MAS press release:

Three thousand free wooden bikes would allow for rapid circumnavigation on looping, leafy paths.

 The NYC Transit Pipe and Drums Corps marched in the Inwood annual Memorial Day Parade on Monday, on a route that followed Broadway from 200th Street almost into the Bronx before taking Seaman Avenue, where the above photo was taken, to Inwood Hill Park for a wreath-laying ceremony honoring America's war dead.