Just as a long-awaited public meeting is about to be held on the controversial Brooklyn Bridge Park, state officials were prepared to name a new director for the project.
Regina Myer (pictured here) is the person who will lead the way, representing the state and trying to bring together various forces weighing in on the issue of the park, which is slated to take in 1.3 miles of waterfront bordering Brooklyn Heights, according to the New York Daily News.
Myer is the longtime director of the Brooklyn office of the Department of City Planning.
She replaces Wendy Leventer, who had drawn the wrath of community groups and had been pulled from the position in March by Gov. Spitzer. (Leventer had been appointed by ex-Gov. Pataki.)
There are some who believe that Brooklyn Heights, with its upscale, well-heeled and politically powerful residents, is having too much control over the park and how it will be built.
The critics want the park to be public (open to all Brooklynites and others), as opposed to a private playground for the rich, and they don't want monied occupants of condominiums planned for the site to be calling all the development shots.
Some of the most stinging criticisms of the planned park have come from the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund.
A state official described the project as "the first major park in Brooklyn in over a century."
The Brooklyn Bridge Park could play the same role that Prospect Park has played for tens of thousands of Brooklynites and visitors seeking respite from the pollution and noise of Brooklyn streets.
A. J. Carter, a spokesman for the Empire State Development Corp. that is overseeing the $150 million park says construction will begin in early January, and that most of it will be completed by 2010.
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