Grand Ferry Park

About this listing

Pocket park next to the East River in Williamsburg

Place Details

Place Matters Profile

This park is named for a 19th century ferry that ran between this site in Brooklyn and Manhattan. After the ferry service ended in 1918, the abandoned ferry landing became one of the few stretches along the east river where people could access the waterfront. In the early 1980s, the land was unofficially made into a park by local residents and the advocacy group New Yorkers for Parks. Eventually, the land was officially turned into parkland. The park’s revitalization was completed in 1998, and its design includes smokestacks and cobblestones, reused physical elements from Williamsburg’s industrial heyday.

This park is named for a 19th century ferry that ran between this site in Brooklyn and Manhattan. After the ferry service ended in 1918, the abandoned ferry landing became one of the few stretches along the east river where people could access the waterfront. In the early 1980s, the land was unofficially made into a park by local residents and the advocacy group New Yorkers for Parks. Eventually, the land was officially turned into parkland. The park’s revitalization was completed in 1998, and its design includes smokestacks and cobblestones, reused physical elements from Williamsburg’s industrial heyday.

Nominations

On the occasion of sadness at seeing this lovely wee park covered in trash, I wrote and posted a Father's Day poem in tribute to my Dad who taught me about leaving a place better for having been there: "Grand Ferry is an exquisite park: no barrier between people and water, Manhattan lolls at the horizon like a great rock encrusted with cement and steel lichen….Sometimes I experience Grand Ferry Park as a place where in days past folk gathered to await a shop across the river to work or shop or visit friends and family. I imagine the undercurrent of low conversation as they wait, the slow dignity with which the barges and sailboats still pass." And, this is where I and many others gathered to grieve and watch the WTC crumble and burn.