Brooklyn Bridge Park South

So much has been added to Brooklyn Bridge Park over the past few years that a fresh visit reveals a whole new park – or really a string of small parks.

For a good view of them from above, see my recent post about the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. For a snapshot of Brooklyn Bridge Park's older, northern section four years ago, take a look back in time. To delve inside the newer stretches, read on.

The park now encompasses Pier 6, Pier 5, Pier 2, and various tracts between. Pier 6 is also where Brooklynites can catch the Governors Island Ferry.

Parts of the park have been landscaped with so much greenery you could forget you're in the city – if not for the waterside and skyline views.

There's a lot for children and families here, and not one, not two, but three soccer fields on Pier 5.

But there's also plenty of green grass and peaceful spots for quieter adult pleasures. And lots more room to breathe than in the DUMBO section of the park, not mention at places like Coney Island.

For good measure, we headed to the northern section to see the park's newest art feature, Anish Kapoor's Descension whirlpool, at Pier 1, where it will remain until 10 September 2017.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Brooklyn Heights Promenade in Full

Recently I discovered that the Brooklyn Heights Promenade was actually a park. That day I didn't have time to walk its full length. I hereby remedy that. Here's the southern entrance.

A quick look south offers a good view of Tom Fruin's steel and plexiglass sculpture Watertower 3: RV Ingersoll.

Instead of industrial or undeveloped waterfront, the view now takes in the manifold segments of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

There's even a swimming pool now.

But cast your eye inward and there are picturesque sights closer to hand, like beds of greenery, flowers, and a pleasingly curvilinear entrance to the promenade.

Two-thirds of a century old, the Promenade remains a felicitous place to just sit and enjoy the air and the views.

You can even watch kayak polo.

The lower Manhattan skyline as seen from the Promenade is an ever-popular backdrop for photographers and filmmakers.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Brooklyn Heights Promenade

In all the years I lived in Brooklyn, I never took a walk on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. I can't explain why – maybe I'd seen it in enough movies and TV shows (Annie Hall, Moonstruck, Billions).

I also never realized it counted as a park. But the maple leaf logo on the sign at the northern entrance says it does. And you don't argue with the maple leaf.

This will be just a snippet of a post. I hadn't included the promenade in my planned Brooklyn Heights walk, so I'll have to revisit and walk the whole length. For now, here's a representative sample.

To the left in the photo above: a strip of horticulture (the park proper) and a bit of the classy architecture of the neighborhood.

In the center: people enjoying a warm spring day on the promenade itself, atop the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Opened in 1950, the esplanade was built above the highway to shield the neighborhood from the traffic noise. It does a pretty good job. Technically the walkway is owned by the Department of Transportation, but the Parks Department maintains it.

And to the right: the mouth of the East River.

More than anything else, it's the views that draw people here. The Parks Department website reproduces the text of a historic sign which begins, "'There may be finer views than this in the world, but I don't believe it,' said President Abraham Lincoln in 1864, when he exited his carriage on the crest that gives Brooklyn Heights its name."

The armillary sundial at the northern terminus was weirdly vandalized some years ago, its Pisces symbol pried off and stolen – and, as the close-up above shows, never replaced.

If it had happened more recently, I might suspect hungry goats. They like fish, right?

You get a good view of the ever-expanding Brooklyn Bridge Park, too. (That's the Statue of Liberty on the far right.)

Some modest springtime blooms along the inner fringe caught my eye.

Also at the northern end is the Fruit Street Sitting Area, which looks like an extension of the promenade but has its own name with its own official Parks Department sign complete with maple leaf – the leaf with which (as established above) we don't argue.

I'll cover the full length of the promenade another day.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media