"After recent snowstorms, neighborhoods with Business Improvement Districts (BID) were cleared faster: sidewalks were shoveled; trash was picked up; streets were walkable. Meanwhile, here in North Brooklyn - despite being one of the city's fastest-growing and most commercially dense areas - we were left waiting. It felt familiar. Those disparities echoed what many of us experienced during the pandemic, when neighborhoods with supplemental, reliably funded services fared better than those without. For me, that moment was a turning point."
"In the absence of a reliable funding mechanism - like those that support maintenance of other major parks across New York City - NBK Parks has supported NYC Parks with additional professional horticultural services like tree care, lawn management, soil restoration and day-to-day stewardship to keep open portions of Bushwick Inlet Park healthy and well maintained. But this is not a sustainable model for the future park without long-term, reliable funding."
North Brooklyn experienced slower snow clearance and service response compared with neighborhoods served by Business Improvement Districts, revealing unequal maintenance. Neighborhoods with BIDs received faster sidewalk shoveling, trash pickup, and walkable streets. NBK Parks has partnered with city and state agencies for more than twenty years to maintain parks, provide professional horticultural care, and steward plazas and open spaces in Community Board 1. Bushwick Inlet Park remains unfinished and underfunded; NBK Parks has supplied tree care, lawn management, soil restoration, and day-to-day stewardship to keep open portions healthy. Organizers are forming a Northside Improvement District to secure long-term, reliable funding for equitable public space maintenance.
Read at Brooklyn Eagle
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