Brooklyn Bridge Park promenade
— — the city held at the length of a slow walk.
Not only on a wall.
“The eighty-five acres of waterfront park that runs from Atlantic Avenue north past the Brooklyn Bridge to John Street, built in phases on the old shipping piers. Pier 1 carries the promenade closest to the bridge. Salt grasses, granite outcrops salvaged from older East River infrastructure, and a long view across the water to lower Manhattan.
Brooklyn Bridge Park promenade, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Brooklyn Bridge Park covers eighty-five acres along a mile and a third of East River waterfront, reclaimed from the old Brooklyn Piers shipping terminals. The park opened in phases beginning in 2010, designed by the landscape office of Michael Van Valkenburgh, with Pier 1 and the central promenade among the first sections finished. The promenade runs north from the foot of Atlantic Avenue past Pier 1, under the Brooklyn Bridge, and out to John Street at the far end of DUMBO. Brooklyn Heights sits on the bluff above the southern half of the park.
The park stays open every day from six in the morning to one the following morning, free to enter. The R, 2, and 3 trains feed the southern end at Borough Hall; the F at York Street and the A and C at High Street feed the northern end through DUMBO. Pier 1 carries the central promenade with the longest sightline to the Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan. Pier 6 holds the playgrounds and the seasonal ferry to Governors Island. The NYC Ferry's East River route stops at Pier 1 throughout the day.
The East River is not really a river but a tidal strait, running between Upper New York Bay and Long Island Sound, with currents strong enough to have decided where the old Brooklyn shipyards could berth. From the promenade the water reads grey-green most days and reflects the towers of lower Manhattan in long broken stripes after sundown. The salt marsh garden along Pier 1 was planted with native cordgrass and seaside goldenrod to reconnect the rebuilt shoreline to the river it sits beside.