CLINTON HILL — Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership hopes to turn a neglected area under the BQE into a public plaza.
The area, at the cross section of Steuben Street and Park Avenue in the Wallabout district of Clinton Hill, currently serves as a dumping ground for illegal trash and sometimes plays host to “undesirable activity,” according to the partnership.
In its place, the partnership has a list of possible ideas — a weekend Farmer’s Market, food trucks, public sculpture, a garden center, musical performances, and a dog run to name a few — to make the space enjoyable for the community.
“This is unique because we are trying to activate a space that is essentially dead and neglected,” M. Blaise Backer, director of the partnership, said at a recent Community Board 2 meeting.“ This would not be a plaza as most people have come to know it but a way to activate a space underneath elevated transportation.”
The partnership has spoken with nearby grocery store Fresh Direct about hosting a Farmer’s Market and with Urban Space Management, the creators of the shuttered DeKalb Market, about implementing something similar in the space.
Planning is in the beginning stages as the partnership waits to see if they receive a NYCDOT Public Plaza grant to fund the development of the space.
For now the partnership has an endless amount of ideas to transform the shadowed space.
“Anything under the sun is possible,” Backer said of the project.
Community Board 2 submitted a letter of support to DOT for the project. DOT will choose winning applications by January 2014.
