Federal Program Announces Grant for Next Phase of Gotham Park
The departing administration of President Joe Biden is delivering a gift to what is shaping up to Lower Manhattan’s next great public space. The federal Department of Transportation (DOT) is tapping into its Reconnecting Communities grant program to allocate $2 million for Gotham Park – a nine-acre collection of outdoor areas alongside and under the Brooklyn Bridge, stretching from Park Row to South Street.
The Reconnecting Communities program (part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) seeks to undo the effects of now-outmoded urban planning strategies “by removing, retrofitting, or mitigating highways or other transportation facilities that create barriers to community connectivity, including to mobility, access, or economic development.” This description tracks almost precisely to the origins of the land that is now evolving into Gotham Park: for decades, erstwhile recreation space has been fenced off and used as parking lots for construction and maintenance vehicles working on the span above.
But in a proposal titled “Arches Plaza – Restoring the Community Fabric Under the Brooklyn Bridge,” which was submitted to the DOT in 2024, activists outlined a vision for a new permanent plaza featuring seating, landscaping, recreational spaces, short-term concessions, and temporary art installations, along with two-way protected bike lanes on Frankfort and Dover Streets, connecting to the East River Greenway and enhancing the continuity of the bike network for cyclists traveling to and from Arches Plaza.
Earlier this month, the DOT announced that it was awarding $2 million to Gotham Park, saying that it “will connect several diverse and long-separated neighborhoods in Manhattan. Through the construction of Arches Plaza and transportation network improvements in the surrounding area, the project will reconnect disadvantaged communities and provide community amenities, open space, multi-modal transportation options, and economic and climate benefits.”
Lower Manhattan resident Rosa Chang, co-founder and president of Gotham Park, said, “with this funding, we are unlocking nine underutilized acres in a dense and diverse community of over 47,000 residents on Lower Manhattan’s East Side to create a gathering place, hub and connector for our neighbors of all ages, backgrounds, interests, and abilities to enjoy together.”
The Reconnecting Communities grant is the latest in a series of wins for the Gotham Park project, which in November debuted a one-third acre plaza named the Arches that had been rehabilitated with more than a dozen shade trees (among them oaks, elms, and Japanese pagoda trees), plus 16 park benches. That development reprised the May 2023 opening of a nearby, one-acre section of Gotham Park that had been refurbished to include a skateboard park and courts for basketball, shuffleboard, and pickleball.
The next stage in the plan will reopen the two blocks between Park Row and Pearl Street, as well as the Vaults (the arched brickwork spaces within the Brooklyn Bridge’s anchorage), converting them for the first time to public use. Inside the Vaults, Gotham Park planners envision a community hub, a New York Public Library and a Brooklyn Bridge Museum housing documents and artifacts from the design and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, with a connected maker space. The final stage of Gotham Park will open the largest spaces, adjacent to the East River.
Each of these phases will create new playgrounds and active recreation facilities, while also rejuvenating significant pieces of infrastructure such as the Park Row tunnel, which affords walkers and bikers a connection between the Financial District and Chinatown, and offers access to the pedestrian deck of the Brooklyn Bridge.