The Future of Fourth Avenue

By: Will Yakowicz

What’s in store for Fourth Avenue’s future?

A tough, but good, question. Now, nearly 20 new high-rise residential towers dot the six-lane thoroughfare notorious for low-rise auto repair shops. With new residents and new buildings (and a NBA stadium looming down the street in the future), a new neighborhood is under way and the Park Slope Civic Council will address the avenue’s changes in its upcoming annual meeting.

“The goal is to make holistic changes with balanced social and economic growth,” said

Craig Hammerman, district manager of Community Board 6, who will be a speaker at the public forum on Thursday, March 4, 7:00 P.M at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street.

Hammerman said that since the 2003 rezoning of Park Slope, which allowed the construction of 12-story buildings along 30 blocks of Fourth Avenue, new buildings have drawn new residents and with new residents the community will need new restaurants, stores, and services.

“I think the excitement is what this opportunity creates for us. The avenue has been here for the whole time, and now the attention is here and the potential is endless,” said Hammerman.

Hammerman is not the only one excited for the gritty avenue’s facelift. Earlier this month, Borough President Marty Markowitz, spoke about the avenue’s endless potential during his State of the Borough Address.

“I have long imagined this bleak stretch of road transformed into something reminiscent of the beautiful, tree-lined portion of Park Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side… reaching from Atlantic Avenue to the Atlantic Ocean and worthy of the name ‘Brooklyn Boulevard,’” Markowitz said.

It may be long before the Avenue can be donned a Boulevard, but Markowitz revealed that help is on its way with the partnership of a team of New York University urban planning graduate students who will submit designs this April for a greener, safer, and pedestrian-friendly revitalization.

But grad students do not have all the ideas for revitalizing. The Park Slope Civic Council has supported projects to create a better community on Fourth Avenue for years. Last year, with help from Assembly Woman Joan Millman, the PSCC pushed the Department of Transportation to transform the northbound left turn lane on Fourth Avenue to Union Street into a pedestrian refuge for crossing the intersection.

The PSCC will also address its proposals at the public forum for a public garden and create access to the City’s water tunnel in the vacant lot at Fourth Avenue and Sackett Street, fund tree planting along the thoroughfare, reopen the F train subway entrance on the east side of Fourth Avenue between Ninth and Tenth streets, and reopen retail spaces adjacent to the subway station.

“I’m not quite sure what the vision is, but Fourth Avenue is changing and becoming more residential. We need to agree to keep the businesses that employ local residents,” said Michael Cairl, chairman of the livable streets committee of PSCC. “Fourth Avenue is a blank slate at the moment and people have different ideas and opinions, this is what the forum is all about.”