BQGreen will create a “park out of thin air” by extending a concrete platform over a portion of the BQE expressway that runs below the street level in Williamsburg, Brooklyn between S. Third and S. Fifth Streets. BQGreen will integrate Marcy Green and Rodney Park, two existing parks which currently are adjacent to the expressway. The design for the new park calls for 3.5-acres of open space with a flower garden, a playground, a baseball diamond, barbecues, grassy and wooded areas, an indoor pool and a water play zone.

BQGreen:

  • Will deliver environmental justice to the neighborhood’s longtime residents.
  • Will promote improved health for current and future generations thanks to the trees and plants that will help absorb freeway noise and dirty air, and ease the urban heat island effect.
  • Is a high profile idea that would make a significant difference citywide. It is on par with the High Line in terms of the impact that it will have. The park captures the imagination in a way that the other potential park projects do not.
  • Will become a great example of what can be achieved when local communities, city, state and federal governments and private companies work together toward a more equitable and sustainable future.

Deputy Borough President Diana Reyna is the project’s leading public sponsor and its original champion. Other leading advocates of BQGreen include local Council Member Antonio Reynoso, Council Member Mark Levine, chair of the City Council’s Committee on Parks and Recreation and Susannah Drake, the project’s architect.

The idea of building a park over a highway is not new. In 2012, a five-acre park built on a deck over a highway in downtown Dallas, Texas opened. In 1976, the city of Seattle built Freeway Park over an interstate highway in downtown Seattle. In August 2016, the city of Toronto announced plans to deck over its downtown rail corridor with a park.