The BQE probably won’t get fixed, and Brooklyn Bridge Park (BBP) will likely fill up with condos and hotels, but at least it won’t remain so hard to get to much longer: a new $4.9 million wood footbridge between Brooklyn Heights’ Squibb Park and BBP is expected to open its span by next summer.
Popular Mechanics and the Brooklyn Paper report that engineer, vice-president of architecture and engineering firm HNTB Corporation and MacArthur Genius Award recipient Ted Zoli designed the structure to be built not of metal, but long-lasting, rot-resistant planks of black locust—the same material used for fence posts inside BBP.
At 396 feet, Squibb Park Bridge will feature two major spans of 120 feet, the first leading down from the small cement park, over Furman Street, and the second wrapping around a lot within the park that will sprout a planned hotel in the years to come. Back in 2009 the footbridge’s feasibility was jeopardized when City Hall cut $8 million from BBP’s already hefty construction budget, but the next year the city council and borough president Marty Markowitz were able to set aside the nearly $5 million required for its construction, which is scheduled to be finished by summer of 2012.