The opening of the newest section of the long-awaited Bushwick Inlet Park gives Greenpointers direct access to one of the Brooklyn waterfront’s most peaceful corners. But for some, it’s bittersweet.
BY COLE SINANIAN
cole@queensledger.com
GREENPOINT — The fences around Bushwick Inlet came down this week, opening the rare and tranquil cove to the public for the first time in more than a century. The Motiva Parcel — as the strip of land around the inlet is known — officially opened on Thursday, April 30 after having been fenced off for months to allow newly planted trees and shrubs to take root.
With ample birdwatching opportunities, water access for kayakers and perhaps Greenpoint’s first and only beach, the Motiva Parcel — located at the north end of 14th St — is the latest section of the incomplete Bushwick Inlet Park to open to the public. It’s one of six NYC Parks-owned parcels that the City set aside as part of the 2005 Williamsburg/Greenpoint rezoning to be developed into a sprawling, 27.8-acre waterfront park, a park that, as of 2026, remains mostly unfinished, with the bulk of the property still in need of major environmental remediation before development can proceed.
“I’m just really excited for neighbors to be able to access such beauty right in our own community,” said Greenpoint City Councilmember Lincoln Restler in an interview. “And you know, this is something that we celebrate, but with clear recognition that we’ve got a long way to go.”
The section that opened Thursday was acquired by the City in 2014 from a fossil fuel company called Motiva Enterprises for $5 million. It joins two other sections of the park to have already opened — the hilltop gardens at 50 Kent and the soccer fields at 86 Kent — bringing the total park land acreage to 9 out of the eventual 27.8 total.
Since the 2005 rezoning, tens of thousands of housing units have been built along the Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfronts, while development of the promised park has stalled. As this area of waterfront land was once populated by fuel storage and the oil and gas refineries of companies like Standard Oil, Motiva Enterprises, Astral Oil Works and Bayside Fuel, expensive remediation measures are needed before the rest of the park can be completed.
The next section of the park to open will likely be an 8.5-acre parcel acquired by the City from CitiStorage, located east of Kent Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets. Funding has been secured and remediation talks are underway, Restler confirmed, though National Grid — which is responsible for cleaning up the site — has been slow to cooperate. According to Restler, there remains a gap of $75-100 million to fund the park’s completion.
“There are a lot of moving parts on the cleanup,” Restler said. “Each parcel is different. We’re waiting on some environmental analysis from the State Department of Environmental Conservation. But I think that if there’s a will on the part of the Mamdani team to move this park forward, then we can find a way.”
Members of Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park pose in front of Bushwick Inlet on Wednesday, April 29. Photo by Cole Sinanian
But for some locals, the Motiva Parcel’s opening has been overshadowed by what could soon be built next to it — the highly contentious mixed-use mega-development called Monitor Point. Proposed by the Gotham Organization and set to occupy the property immediately north of Bushwick Inlet, the Monitor Point development would see 1,150 housing units built across three high-rise towers, public open space, and a museum to honor the Monitor battleship all built next to the inlet. The project is in the midst of a lengthy approval process and has received support from the local community board and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, though both Reynoso and Restler have called for developers to commit to more affordable housing. Currently, Gotham has committed to making 40% of the towers’ units affordable at 40-80% Area Median Income (AMI).
On Wednesday evening, a small group of Greenpointers gathered at the newly accessible inlet as its calm waters lapped at the sandy beach and a family of ducks floated by. Many were board members and volunteers for a group called Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, which has advocated for the park’s completion and has organized against the Monitor Point project.
Present at the gathering was 35-year Greenpoint resident Trina McKeever, who raised three now-adult sons in the neighborhood. She explained that while she’s grateful that Bushwick Inlet is finally accessible and the park appears to be moving forward, she also hopes that the public’s interaction with the inlet will help them better appreciate it and understand the threats it is under.
“It’s definitely bittersweet,” McKeever said. “But what it does is gives everybody the opportunity to actually see where that building is in relation to the park, and hopefully there’ll be even larger groundswell of opposition to Gotham.”
She continued: ““I have three sons that grew up in Greenpoint, and the waterfront was all walled off. “I really feel that this particular site is sacred. It’s next to the inlet, and there just aren’t places like that in Greenpoint.”
Restler agreed.
“The access to the water, the Zen-like feeling of being on Bushwick inlet, it just really, really got me when I had the chance to be down there,” he said. “People’s mental health will improve as a result of this little parcel.”
