FORT GREENE — The Willoughby Avenue Entrance to Fort Greene Park is now open, after more than a year of construction.
The Fort Greene Park Conservancy announced the opening of the entrance, at Willoughby Avenue and Washington Park, on Christmas Day.
“We couldn’t be happier that our neighborhood will be able to enjoy this gift for the the holiday season. Talk about Christmas miracles,” read the email announcement.
The long-awaited repairs were completed more than six years after the Parks Department first said it would fix the entrance, which sits at the bottom of a steep hill.
Improvements include the installation of 13 new catch basins, five manholes, eight drywells and corrugated pipes to collect rainwater and runoff from the park. Parkgoers will no longer have to jump over large puddles of water and mud to enter the park after a rainy day.
The entrance is now also ADA-accessible with the installation of a ramp and expanded sidewalk.
The parks department has also added new paving on pathways and planted 6,000 plants, shrubs and trees. Chain-link fences will remain in place through early next year to allow the new landscaping to set.
While the entrance is open, there is still some work to be done. The parks department will be installing benches by the entrance and adding more plants to restore the lawns around the fences.
The parks department’s fully-funded $1.25 million project is slated to be finished by spring 2016.
