Brooklyn Bridge Forest is a mission-driven proposal to reimagine the bridge as an icon of global change. Our team has been working together for more than ten years to forge connections between the Brooklyn Bridge, New York City residents and a partnering tropical forest community who will supply sustainably-sourced planks for the rebuilt promenade. 

 

Our proposal is based on accentuating the irreplaceable experience of the Brooklyn Bridge, by making it more accessible, and less congested for pedestrians and cyclists, while at the same time connecting the bridge to the most urgent needs of the city and the wider world.

 

Our proposal is self-funding, brings nature and biodiversity into the heart of the city and invites New Yorkers, especially in underserved communities in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn, to partake in all that the historic bridge and our new interventions have to offer: an expansive wooden promenade for pedestrians and bicycles that will help permanently protect 200,000 acres of precious rain forest; new green spaces based on the original biodiverse forests on Manhattan and Brooklyn that invite public dialogue, remembrance and co-creation; pop-up market spaces in the historic anchorage/approach vaults to be used by local vendors and neighborhood services (like Recycle-A- Bicycle) and an immediate “phase zero” strategy to get bicycles moving on the lower deck of the bridge while longer term changes take place.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge stands as a legacy, for the world, of what is possible when creativity, determination and urgency come together. We are again at such a point in history and we enlist the Great Bridge to help this generation write a new history for the role of cities in shaping the destiny of humanity and the planet. 

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To read the list of team members for the competition submission, see the partnership page.