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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Rosa Chang, Co-founder of Gotham Park
2:07:31
ยท
131 sec
Rosa Chang, co-founder of Gotham Park, testified about their grassroots organization's efforts to create and maintain a new community-led public space in a historically underinvested neighborhood near City Hall. She highlighted the importance of the Brooklyn Bridge vaults and advocated for their reopening to house a public library that would serve the diverse local community.
- Gotham Park is opening a 9-acre public space, with 1 acre already open and 3 more acres to be opened by the end of the year.
- The Brooklyn Bridge vaults, originally designed as interconnected commercial spaces, are currently closed but have potential for public use.
- Chang requested support to advocate for reopening the vaults and creating a New York public library to serve the local community, which is 64% BIPOC and has 20% of families living below the federal poverty level.
Rosa Chang
2:07:31
Hello.
2:07:31
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today.
2:07:34
My name is Rosa Chang, co founder of Gautam Park, a grassroots 501c3 created in 2021 to open, operate, and maintain a new community led public space in a neighborhood that has been historically underinvested and overlooked.
2:07:49
Right outside city hall, we are an environmental justice neighborhood with over 47,000 residents within a half mile radius with racial health and structural inequity and a historically disadvantaged community federally classified.
2:08:03
As our site is anchored by the landmark Brooklyn Bridge, we are a DOT Plaza partner, and we opened 1 acre in 2023 and are opening a further 3 acres.
2:08:14
We are excited to say, by the end of this year, and will be 9 acres when we are complete.
2:08:21
The Brooklyn Bridge includes a built interior space beneath beneath the bridge, which are the vaults.
2:08:28
And they were originally designed to be interconnected shopping our kids, restaurants, blindfaults, and commercial space.
2:08:35
They have been open and accessible for far longer than they have ever been closed, which is what they are right now.
2:08:41
And they are magical and inspiring spaces.
2:08:45
We have a moment that may come only once this generation to advocate for opening these vaults back up, and I am here today to ask for your support and advocacy with city hall, DOT Bridges And Tamils Division, NYPD Counterterrorism, to let New Yorkers back into these singularly majestic spaces with a New York public library that will service our diverse local community, which is 64% bipoch and 20% of our families living below the federal poverty level.
2:09:16
Truckingly, there are no public libraries south of Murray Street.
2:09:19
So in all of Lower Manhattan, we think there could be no better opportunity than this iconic New York landmark that celebrates human imagination and achievement to reinforce for our community and our children that when we work together, we are capable of astounding things that spark joy in our hearts and expand our minds.
2:09:41
Thank you.