The Brooklyn Paper broke the news that Jehovah’s Witnesses will finally donate $5.5 M to overhaul Bridge Park II opposite the 85 Jay Street parking lot right by the F train subway station. Fixing this park was part of an upzoning deal between the city and the Witnesses over ten years ago which is now addressed again before their departure out of our neighborhood.
“The religious outfit offered to fix Bridge Park 2 when the city agreed to let the group build a huge housing complex on a massive parking lot next door at 85 Jay Street. But Watchtower never actually built the new property, and the planning process for the park facelift dragged for years through various design iterations, eventually hitting an impasse over cost and labor — the Witnesses wanted to use its members as volunteer workers, which is not how the city typically does business.“
Ideas for the run-down park include a skate park, a playground and a water park. Whether or not $5.5 million will be enough to build this new park is unclear at this point. Whether or not this amount is appropriate considering the fact that the Witnesses will walk away with over $1 Billion by selling the three properties they just put on the marked has been questioned by officials. Stay tuned for more details and a timeline of the project!
