Brooklyn officials: NY state must partner with city to build ‘BQGreen’

WILLIAMSBURG — Brooklyn officials and community organizations gathered in Rodney Park North on Tuesday to demand that Gov. Kathy Hochul direct the state to partner with NYC to apply for federal infrastructure funds to build a green, parklike platform over a sunken portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) cutting through a Black, Brown and Orthodox Jewish section of South Williamsburg.

The trench, which falls into a state-owned section of the highway the city calls BQE North, has divided the neighborhood for 70 years, and pollution from the interstate highway has affected the health, economy and opportunities of residents for generations.

The city is willing to be a co-applicant with the state on the project, dubbed BQGreen, which has been in a preliminary planning stage for more than a decade, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Rep. Nydia Velazquez said.

“But the state said no,” Reynoso said.

The state’s stance is inexplicable given that the project appears to match a major priority of the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework: reversing decades of divisive and polluting infrastructure projects that have fallen most heavily on communities of color. 

Reynoso said he has been working on the project since then-Councilmember Diana Reyna, for whom Reynoso was serving as Chief of Staff, came up with the project in 2010.

“Decades later, nothing has changed. I tried again as a Councilmember. Here we are again.” He noted that childhood asthma cases at Woodhull Hospital was three times higher for neighborhood kids than the rate for the general city population. “It’s no coincidence” that the BQE runs mostly through low-income neighborhoods, he…