Mayor Adams has promised $50 million to what I call the Brooklyn Banks, and what he calls “The Arches” and what the local folks who started this ball rolling just a few years ago call “Gotham Park.” Whatever you call it, it is the (potentially) nine acres of fallow space underneath the Brooklyn Bridge’s Manhattan footings and off-ramps, just north and east of City Hall.

The commitment is $5 million for design of the rest of the park in the mayor’s budget for fiscal year 2026, and $45 million for construction for fiscal year 2028. Advocates for the park also secured $2 million from the federal government as part of a “Reconnecting Communities” grant.

At the ribbon cutting, the deputy mayor thanked Rosa Chang, the CB1 member who spearheaded the idea of a park and co-founded the non-profit Gotham Park; and Tony Hawk, the famed skateboarder.

“Inside the archways are hidden gems that if we would just give it some investment and care, it could turn into places where families and communities could come together,” the mayor said at the presser. “All we have to do is stop walking past these beautiful investments that were made generations ago and pause for a moment and just look at them and realize they’re calling for us to renew them.”

Before sections of it reopened to the public in 2023 — the city called that The Arches — the park was most recently used by skateboarders who named it the Brooklyn Banks. They loved it for the sloped sections of brick that swept up the sides of the bridge’s foundations, and its popularity attracted thousands and thousands of skaters over the years. That was 15 years ago, and the area was closed while the bridge was restored. (Yes, that took a decade and then folks had to fight to get the space reopened.)

It was a skateboarder, Steve Rodriguez, who kept pushing for the space to be reopened and got the attention of members of Community Board 1. “It’s been 15 years since the fence went up around the big banks and I began my advocacy for this space,” he said at the event, “and I can’t wait to cut the ribbon and open up a world of opportunity here at the Brooklyn Bridge Banks.”

To date the spaces have been built out by the Department of Transportation.

See more on the plans here and more of the historic photos here.