Brownsville OPEN SPACE INDEX BROWNSVILLE OPEN SPACE INDEX ❁ II Table of Contents Letter from Lynn B. Kelly, Executive Director .....................................................1 Executive Summary .............................................................................................3 About Brownsville ................................................................................................4 Locally-Defined Conditions & Needs ...................................................................6 Open Space Goals & Brownsville Results ............................................................8 Findings ...............................................................................................................12 Opportunities for Brownsville ............................................................................15 Recommendations .............................................................................................16 Bettering Brownsville .........................................................................................17 What’s Next for NY4P & Brownsville................................................................18 Appendices .........................................................................................................19 Appendix 1: Detailed Methodology ................................................................19 Appendix 2: Report Card on Brownsville Parks .............................................21 On the cover: Appendix 3: Open Space Index At-a-Glance Table .........................................22 Betsy Head Park, Duane Kinnon, Friends of Brownsville Further Reading .................................................................................................23 Parks II ✿ NEW YORKERS FOR PARKS Letter from the Executive Director Brownsville, Brooklyn, is home to almost 60,000 New Yorkers. New Yorkers for Parks’ Research & Planning team has been working in Brownsville—collecting data, creating and deepening relationships—since 2014. However, our annual Daffodil Project, the living memorial to 9/11, introduced our Outreach team to Brownsville’s residents and open spaces more than five years ago. Brownsville’s residents negotiate burdens of inequitable urban conditions, stemming from decades of public and private disinvestment. The neighborhood’s open spaces—and its res- idents—have suffered from that absence of resources. As NY4P wrapped up its work inves- tigating neighborhood open space conditions in Mott Haven in the Bronx, our Research team was introduced to Brownsville by our connections in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). As we learned about the challenges facing Brownsville residents, from poor health factors and low educational outcomes to development pressures and per- ceptions of unsafety, we committed to per- forming our neighborhood-focused Open Space Index study. Betsy Head Park, Duane Kinnon, Friends of Brownsville Parks Residents and open space advocates from investment, and a commitment to real change will contribute towards Brownsville’s contin- roles for (and opportunities for) open spaces. Jackson Heights in Queens to the Lower East by elected officials at multiple levels. ued social, health, and economic development, We’ll convene decision-makers, community Side in Manhattan have used data provided and allow Brownsville to respond to locally-de- programmers, and local stakeholders to create in our Open Space Indices as a base for local So that Brownsville’s residents can ensure that fined conditions and needs. action steps. We’ll grow the capacity of local movements and successes for local parks. In these changes and opportunities accrue real open space advocates to enact local priorities East Harlem, it was used to inform the vision benefits to their community, New Yorkers for Underpinned by our Public Realm Bill of through open-space solutions. We’re look- created in the East Harlem Neighborhood Parks is furnishing them with the Open Space Rights, our research informs the outreach and ing forward to working with the Friends of Plan. Although Brownsville has not yet been Index. Understanding how well parks, gardens, advocacy work we do: the next step in our Brownsville Parks and other local stakeholders named as a neighborhood that will be rezoned and open spaces are serving today’s Brownsville work in Brownsville is to increase our outreach to improve Brownsville’s open spaces, together. on a large scale, residents feel the pressures of will allow resident stakeholders to make the presence. We’ll connect Brownsville residents development already. Brownsville stands on hard choices of how to plan for the next era. and advocates to the larger conversations New the precipice of unprecedented levels of public We recommend three open space actions that York City and other cities are having about the Lynn B. Kelly, Executive Director BROWNSVILLE OPEN SPACE INDEX ❁ 1 Howard Malls, by the Friends of Brownsville Parks 2 ✿ NEW YORKERS FOR PARKS Executive Summary We investigated neighborhood-level open space conditions in Brooklyn for the first time in the history of the Open Space Index, using publicly available data and observing park conditions to inform a nascent neighborhood-wide park advocacy organization. NY4P created the Open Space Index to ensure that local stakeholders, responding to local 1 2 3 data, can create local priorities and action As a result of four years of working with Local physical open space conditions only meet NY4P recommends policy, capital, and pro- steps to achieve open space and other inter- Brownsville stakeholders, NY4P accepts three four out of the 14 Open Space Index goals. gramming action steps for actors from the related neighborhood improvements. This major community-defined needs as the driving Mayor and Governor to local advocates. A. Access to open spaces in Brownsville is Open Space Index, investigating Brownsville, impetus for any local open space capital or not straightforward: complicated social A. Prioritize publicly-accessible open spaces Brooklyn, is our seventh. As we study each programmatic change. structures constrain the movement of in new developments. neighborhood, we update our data collection A. Brownsville residents experience the young people in the neighborhood. and evaluation tools to properly assess each B. Increase opportunities for active park uses. causes and effects of poverty, and need neighborhood’s open space features, politi- B. Brownsville lacks open space acreage to solutions to poor social and economic C. Invest in Brownsville open spaces. cal and social landscapes, and on-the-ground meet the recreational and passive needs of conditions. existing capacity. current neighborhood residents. B. Brownsville residents suffer dispropor- C. With major renovations coming to Betsy The Open Space Index measures 14 New York tionately from poor health outcomes, Head Park and the Brownsville Recre- City-specific goals for open spaces, chosen in and need holistic approaches to ation Center, key recreational resources, 2008 primarily from PlaNYC sustainability improving health. there will be a temporary local vacuum measures to environmental review standards. C. Brownsville residents identify youth of recreational opportunities in excess of A detailed discussion of the Open Space Index and recreation-focused solutions to existing everyday recreational needs. methodology can be found in Appendix 1 (page violence and crime as a pressing 19). This report (1) identifies locally-defined neighborhood need. needs, (2) analyzes local conditions against the 14 open space goals, and (3) recommends action steps for various stakeholders. Nehemiah Park, by Duane Kinnon, Friends of Brownsville Parks BROWNSVILLE OPEN SPACE INDEX ❁ 3 About Brownsville NY4P developed the Open Space Index as a tool to guide neighborhood open space planning and help from NYC Parks’ Partnerships for Parks (PfP)1, park advocates ensure that future generations will enjoy adequate parkland, greenery, and recreation. informed our understanding of local park priorities. At the outset of our work in Browns- Urbanized Brownsville was first a community Brownsville has had parks and open spaces Brownsville’s Parks & ville, local advocates identified conditions in of Jewish industrial laborers. As the demo- since the neighborhood’s early history. From Open Spaces Betsy Head Park as the single biggest problem graphic shift of white flight and the Great historic Betsy Head Park, funded by a phil- Brownsville is home to 34.7 acres of open space, for local parks and open spaces. Migration occurred in the 1950s, tower-in- anthropic gift to the City in 1915, to newly spread over 38 separate properties. Although the-park public housing developments simul- renovated spaces like Howard Playground, it has a fairly good distribution of community With Claudette Ramos of PfP, we convened a taneously replaced large swathes of historic with its new adult fitness stations, Brownsville’s gardens and pocket parks, Brownsville lacks task force meeting on Betsy Head Park. Local tenements. Quickly, Brownsville became a parks and open spaces serve a dense commu- a large park of over 20 acres in size. Most stakeholders, organization representatives, largely Black and Latino neighborhood. Since nity with a growing appetite for safe, clean, Brownsville residents are not within easy walk- and park advocates came together to focus that time, the neighborhood has struggled with attractive places for play, rest, and recreation. ing distance of nearby