TOP 10 FACTS

Learn about the plan to pour concrete for a 40,000-square-foot, regional-scale sports complex (bigger than 8 pro basketball courts) on historic green Mount Prospect Park!

* Multi-millions of our public money 

* No community site consultation

* Safety and traffic problems 

* Undermines climate, green, resiliency goals 

1. Don’t pave green park space in a worsening climate crisis! This plan goes against officials’ green climate pledges, policies, reports and community surveys. Community Board 9 voted against it as “bad public policy” – while welcoming skate construction “with open arms” on already-paved space. Facing record-breaking heat, drought, and urban parks catching fire, we deserve the best decision-making – and we owe it to our kids.  Construction and pouring concrete over root systems endangers decades-old mature shade trees, critical tree canopy the City is supposed to protect and preserve. This construction threatens key climate and cooling resources crucial to the wellbeing of current and future generations of Brooklynites.

2. Needless conflict. Fix nearby skate spaces, and build on already-paved spaces! We shouldn't have to choose between green space or skate space – officials have manufactured community conflict. Parks Dep’t stats show Brooklyn has more skate spaces than any other borough – by sheer number and per capita. And the Parks Dep't in July 2024 opened a brand new $4.35M skate and BMX facility in Red Hook. Also – many nearby already-paved skate spaces languish for lack of features, upkeep, or funding. Just a few examples: 

  • Brower skatepark in Crown Heights, right next door (being rehabbed soon)

  • Thomas Greene skatepark that opened in 2010 with minimal “interim” small features – but was never built out, due to lack of funding

  • Washington skatepark

  • Kensington/Conroy, with a tiny skate ramp, located in the district that voted for skate space in participatory budgeting

  • Columbus Park Plaza, where Borough President Reynoso wanted to build on a Parks Dep't parking lot – if only there were funding…. 

  • And then there are empty lots and other spaces.

3. It’s public money! Over $11M! The PR campaign gives lots of people the impression California megamillionaire Tony Hawk is paying for it; he's not. Hawk’s foundation is donating design ideas – and gets six years of prominent signage and branding. The $11M (signed off by Mayor Eric Adams, Council Members Crystal Hudson and Shahana Hanif, and Borough President Antonio Reynoso) equals more than half the Parks services and staff cuts citywide, and it’s more than 4x as much as the City’s cuts gutting urban forestry services. 

4. Another environmental point: congestion, traffic, parking The facility is a regional-scale sports complex that would be jammed into an area already filled with tourist attractions, activities and events. 

5. “Bored kids need something to do” This is a “talking point” that doesn’t make sense in an area filled with recreational resources. And the plan is not family neighborhood-friendly. The Public Skatepark Development Guide California skater Tony Hawk helped produce (https://publicskateparkguide.org/vision/types-of-skateparks/) says, "The largest regional skateparks are around 40,000 square feet….Regional skateparks, due to their size, present unique challenges. Smaller, neighborhood skateparks support a cadre of regular park visitors that form a micro-community. Regional skateparks don’t do this as well because they are typically managed as showcase parks.… Regional skateparks tend to lack the ‘community spirit’ that smaller facilities possess."

6. Safety problems particular to Mount Prospect Park The site violates Hawk’s Skatepark Project’s own manual that emphasizes clear sightlines from the street through the facility, “to minimize antisocial behavior” and avert “significant delinquency.” But Mount Prospect Park is secluded, set on a steep, wooded hill – with no sightlines from the street. And there are other safety problems with the site, like the danger of skaters “hill bombing” down the park’s ramp entrance into people with strollers, mobility aids, walking dogs – and then into the busy botanic garden entrance, and traffic on Eastern Parkway. The steep granite steps and rails at the second entrance also empty into Eastern Parkway traffic. And Mount Prospect Park is full of decades-old oak trees that shed thousands of acorns — dangerous “stop rocks” and “danger pebbles” that send skaters flying when a wheel hits.

7. No community site consultation!

8. What about race? District 39 voted for a skate facility in its “participatory budgeting” during the pandemic. By latest Census numbers, according to The City, District 39 is 6% Black. District 35 never voted on this skate project, is 35% Black, has regularly hosted Black Lives Matter protests and rallies in front of the park – and is having its green park space paved. Losing a green “cooling island” for another “heat island” is bad news for neighborhood health, and NYC’s acclaimed WE ACT for Environmental Justice and NYC-EJA have been pointing out for years the systemic reasons that Black and Brown people suffer the worst from urban heat and heat islands from paving. The plan creates an urban climate problem and an environmental justice problem.

9. Don’t pave over historic green park space! Mount Prospect Park is officially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, as a preserved WPA-era park especially designed for “quiet recreation,” between the library and botanic garden. It still serves that key purpose for everyone — including for our elders, our very youngest, people with disabilities (including neurodiverse people).

10. Limits how people now enjoy the park 40,000 square feet covers more than 8 pro basketball courts. It takes over green, free, flexible space now open to all, paving most of it for a narrow band of specialized uses that require purchasing equipment. It will inhibit current uses of the park. For example, park-goers with dogs report their pets react badly to skateboards. No matter where in the park such a huge sports complex is situated, it will limit the shaded areas and playing fields daycares and school groups and summer camps and soccer players now share for flexible use.

If we need more skate space, build on already-paved areas – 

and make this a project where everybody wins! 

For more info, and to sign the petition and get updates, visit www.FriendsofMountProspectPark.org