Marsha P. Johnson State Park

The site of an old marine and shortline rail terminal on the East River, at the edge of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, became a state park in 2007. Thirteen years later the state renamed East River State Park in honor of transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson.

But there's been a lot of change here besides the name. An extremely outdated description at nyctourism.com says this: "East River State Park, otherwise known as the Williamsburg Waterfront, is not fancy: stage, concrete, water...Families can relax amongst historic rail yard remnants, and in the summer, take in family-friendly music and film series."

That doesn't remotely describe today's Marsha P. Johnson State Park, which abuts the unremarkable sports fields of Bushwick Inlet Park. It has some of the fancy trappings that go with our age of reckless real estate development and gentrification, but also exudes a neighborhood-y feel.

The big benefit of a park in this location is, of course, the waterfront.

In the upper left of the photo above there's a seaplane, on the way to Boston perhaps.

Waterfront aside, there's space here for both family fun and sleepy romance.

Remnants of the site's industrial past flowed together with spring flowers and chalked whimsy on a mid-May visit.

A little wooden train perhaps is meant to suggest the short trains that ran here from the waterfront to the lot or street where cargo could be taken up by vehicles for delivery or processing.

Jumbles of stones make good play spaces.

There's fun – and relaxation opportunities – aplenty in this quiet park.

The park's renaming occurred under the Andrew Cuomo administration in 2020. Signage here will tell you that Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992) was a "Black gay and trans liberation activist, drag queen performer, actress, and sex worker [who]...struggled with mental illness" and lived with HIV/AIDS.

She "was known in the West Village for her charisma, joyfulness, and generosity, while living against great odds...Many called her a saint: Saint Marsha."

After the Stonewall uprising, where she was present, she "moved to the forefront of the Gay Liberation Movement." The "P" in her name, we are told, stood for a motto of hers, "Pay it no mind," which is written over her park's main entrance on Kent Ave.

Her body was found in the Hudson River in July of 1992. Uncertainty lingers over whether her death was a suicide or murder.

In recent years New York City has acted to belatedly honor African Americans by naming parks for them. New York State has taken steps in that direction too, and in this case with an African American who was also part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Along the same lines, In March 2024 present governor Kathy Hochul issued a proclamation declaring a Transgender Day of Visibility.

Netflix released a documentary about Johnson in 2017.

Hank O'Neal, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Marsha P. Johnson State Park carries only remnants of the site's industrial/commercial past, but history lives on all around Brooklyn. Consider these old stable doors on a nearby street.

And history is made by all kinds of people. Case in point: Marsha P. Johnson State Park.

All photos © Oren Hope except where noted

North 5th Street Pier and Park

Yet another new park opened this eventful summer of 2019 in New York City. North 5th Street Pier and Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn gives the neighborhood significantly more access to the waterfront. Just weeks after opening, the park was well used by after-work sun worshippers on a breezy early Friday evening in September.

Naturally, it doesn't hurt that the NYC Ferry's North Williamsburg stop is right here. Or that the views are fantastic.

With very long piers and extended stretches of boardwalk, you can actually get in a decent walk.

There's even a sculpture set to play under, "Crescendo" by Mark Gibian.

Face away from the water, and you feel more like you're in an urban plaza than a park. But with modern furniture to camp out on, and relatively inoffensive architecture as a backdrop, that's not so bad.

One pier is lined with turf for yoga or – whatever.

Most everything here is brand new, but there are a few signs of history. Dusty grass pokes up between the boards near Charlie Chaplin. And there's a rusty old bus or trolley stop, a remnant of something. What exactly? I don't know.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Domino Park

Like most New York City parks that have opened with fanfare in recent years, Domino Park, on the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, isn't city-run, but privately funded and maintained.

The first completed stage of a larger redevelopment of the old Domino Sugar Refinery, six-acre Domino Park is a vast improvement over the desolate stretch of waterfront that had defined this edge of the neighborhood since Domino closed the plant in 2004. And with its creative reuse of relics of the industrial past, the park is spectacular in a splashy sort of way.

It's also weirdly theme-park-ish, an effect that's especially notable if you cross into it from dusty old Grand Ferry Park which borders its northern edge. Grand Ferry Park also has an industrial relic – a hundred-year-old smokestack from a Pfizer molasses plant. You could say Domino Park took that idea and ran with it to the extreme – inspired also, no doubt, by the High Line, New York City's most famous conversion of industrial infrastructure to park facilities and another instance of private development stepping in where city funds don't dare to tread. But the contrast between the big, shiny new park and its little, scuffed-up old neighbor is extreme.

The photo above shows the northern entrance to Domino Park and to the elevated catwalk called Artifact Walk, which stretches for several blocks.

The walk incorporates two large cranes from refinery days, the whole thing painted in what Curbed describes as "the park's signature turquoise," a cheery, summery hue that softens all the hard, heavy metal into a gentle, Disneyish playpen.

The elevated walkway offers a panoramic view of the park, the river, and the Williamsburg Bridge, which was the world's longest suspension bridge when it opened in 1903.

The park platform itself, with its "sustainable foliage and trees, a mix of natives and exotics" according to Architectural Digest, has been built "above the 100-year flood elevation and set back 100 feet from the water's edge." Of course, we know terms like "100-year flood" have little meaning now, well into the Anthropocene.

There are a couple of signs of our times in that last paragraph. The first is the mere fact that landscape firm James Corner Field Operations, which also led the development of the High Line, considered climate change and sea level rise when it designed the new park. Second, note the interest taken by a prestigious architecture publication. This facility has been laid out as deliberately as the interior of any new building.

But the interest taken by Real Estate Weekly is also the sharpest indicator of how crucial commercial and financial considerations are to the fate of potential parkland in the city. Its website gushed that Domino Park is "nothing short of miraculous" and "should serve as a national model of urban renewal and an example for future developments."

Kudos, then, to Two Trees Management, owner and operator of the whole Domino redevelopment, including the park. I remember when Two Trees was a small family concern just getting a toehold in Dumbo, where my band shared the rental of a rehearsal studio in the rundown old days. The Domino development will include 2,800 rental apartments. Seven hundred of those will be "affordable." Which means available to (maybe) the five percent, as opposed to just the one percent.

Domino Park isn't just about architecture and real estate. It's also art. Just before it opened, Daniel McDermon of The New York Times heralded "One of this weekend's most anticipated art openings." He was referring to the playground. Designed by Mark Reigelman and incorporating spinning valve wheels cast from Domino originals, it's meant to mimic the sugar refining process. "The idea is that a child enters as raw sugar cane, and exits at the last portion of the playground as molasses, or sugar cubes," Reigelman told the Times. Fun? Creepy? Maybe both. Either way, the ghost of the old Pfizer molasses plant next door would surely approve.

In any case, when I visited, kids were definitely enjoying the refining process.

Meanwhile, up on the Artifact Walk, workers were putting the finishing touches on what looks like a giant "C." What will it help spell? "Come and Play?" "Children Are Our Future"? "Can You Afford to Live Here?"

Grown-ups were enjoying the outdoor seating at the Danny Meyer taco shack.

Old screw conveyors, repositioned as design elements, jutted up from the ground.

Below ancient tanks, steam rose from vents installed in a cut-away section of the pier. If this "poof of noirish fog" (as Gothamist slinkily described it) looks refreshing on a hot day, be aware that if you step into the steam, you will get wet.

The park is manicured to within an inch of its life. Along with the kinetic fountain, playground, steam vents, and artifacts, there are bocce and volleyball courts and a couple of sharply defined stretches of grass to stretch out on.

Meanwhile, across Kent Ave., plenty of development remains to be done.

And the life of the city churns on, oblivious, on the nearby streets and on the East River. I spotted the tugboat Coral Coast motoring under the bridge.

I have mixed feelings about Domino Park, as I do about any public facility run not by the municipal or state government but by private owners. You have to wonder what would happen if – or should I say, what will happen when – the developers fall on hard times. What if the real estate market crashes? Or a huge storm surge or other natural disaster runs roughshod over the sparkling new park, knocking over all the amenities like, well, dominoes?

Of course, when hard times hit, city-run facilities deteriorate too. Just ask the people who founded the Central Park Conservancy.

On balance, any way it comes about, a new park is a good thing. And, all philosophical and social questions aside, on the hot day of my visit this dance step seemed to say it all:

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

East River State Park

We discovered this park on Brooklyn's East River waterfront in the Williamsburg neighborhood some years back when we went to a Smorgasburg event there. I returned for a lunchtime visit on a sunny, windy weekday in June to take some photos.

One feature I like about East River State Park is its extensive stretch of cobblestones (more properly called Belgian block), remnants of the park's history as a 19th-century shipping dock.

The streetside area blooms colorfully in springtime.

But a large expanse of cracked concrete dominates the park's seven acres, good for family picnics and Smorgasburgs but not exactly soothing to the eye.

The old, unfinished-looking grassy sections have a certain charm. Kids like 'em. So do lovers.

In spite of all the waterfront development going on in the city, plenty of these un-manicured stretches remain. Because they're not beautiful, they can offer a feeling of privacy, even isolation.

Why is this a state park? I'm not sure, but it probably has to do with the park's origins in the 1990s as a project of the Trust for Public Land, which stepped in after local residents had rallied to prevent construction of a new waste-transfer station on the abandoned site. Up the river in Queens is another State Park, Gantry Plaza State Park.

One consequence of State Park status: No dogs allowed.