It was raining, so we crouched, rather than sat, in the grassy bowl that Michael Van Valkenburgh, FASLA, had envisioned as the centerpiece of the newly completed green space and playground on Pier 3, which, like most of the other piers in Brooklyn Bridge Park, sprawls over five acres, into the East River.
“I’m lucky to know what it’s like to imagine and hope for something like this for 20 years and finally see it, have it realized,” said Van Valkenburgh, whose firm drew its first plan for this park in 1999. “Look at that sky.” (more…)
The things our art director, Chris McGee, hated to leave out of the current issue of LAM.
Photo by Alex MacLean.
From “Softening the Sound” in the December 2018 issue by Haniya Rae, about the sound-dampening berm that shields Pier 5 at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates’ Brooklyn Bridge Park from the noise emanating from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.