Calvert Vaux Park

The Daily Plant : Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Dreier Offerman Park Design Is Unveiled

Mayor Bloomberg recently unveiled the design for the upcoming restoration of Brooklyn’s Dreier Offerman Park. The $40 million project is a part of the Mayor’s PlaNYC initiative in which eight parks in all five boroughs will be transformed into attractive regional destinations. This restoration will be completed by 2011, and is part of more than $1.2 billion in capital improvements to the City’s parks and open spaces that are part of PlaNYC.

"As we prepare to meet the challenges of adding nearly 1 million residents by the year 2030, we have committed to ensuring that every New Yorker lives within a ten minute walk of a park or open space," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Completing these regional destination parks in all five boroughs will make them the jewels of our park system and increase usability and access for thousands of New Yorkers. Combined with our efforts to open playgrounds in schoolyards and to reclaim brownfields for open space, we are committed to significantly improving and expanding our park system."

Restoration plans for the Dreier Offerman Park include three new baseball fields, six new soccer fields, kayak launches, picnic areas, a central lawn, new restrooms, a bicycle path, new nature trails, an amphitheater, a playground, a recreation center, and a pavilion. As a result of this $40 million investment, the park will be a center for competitive soccer and baseball on the improved Brooklyn waterfront.

Dreier Offerman Park, located in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, was originally planned as a regional park resulting from three land acquisitions by the Parks Department. In 1933, the Dreier-Offerman Home for Unwed Mothers closed and donated a small parcel to the City, creating the original park. In 1944, the park was first expanded and in 1962 the City acquired an additional 72-acre tract of land. This acquisition, financed by a 1960 New York State bond act, provided the bulk of land that makes up today’s 77 acre park, which is bounded by Gravesend Bay, Bay 44th Street, Bay 49th Street, and Shore Parkway. However, Dreier Offerman’s potential was never fully realized because of a lack of coordinated plans and adequate funding.

In addition to a $50 million restoration of McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn and the restoration of Dreier Offerman Park, regional parks slated for redevelopment under PlaNYC include the High Bridge in Manhattan and the Bronx, Soundview Park in the Bronx, Fort Washington Park in Manhattan, Highland Park Reservoir and Rockaway Beach in Queens, and Ocean Breeze Park in Staten Island. PlaNYC will also result in the planting of one million trees throughout the City, the opening of 290 schoolyards as playgrounds, and the creation of 800 new Greenstreets.

"If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going."

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