Brooklyn Heights Promenade

The Brooklyn Heights Promenade exists because local residents fought to protect their neighborhood from a devastating highway plan. In the nineteen forties, city planner Robert Moses intended to run the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway directly through the heart of this historic district, which would have required the demolition of many homes. The community successfully pressured the city to move the highway route toward the waterfront. As a compromise, they secured a design that hid the massive expressway beneath a cantilevered platform, effectively turning a necessary piece of transportation infrastructure into a public park.