Community District 7 is a mixed residential, industrial and commercial community. Home to a diverse and integrated population, the District is comprised of two main communities: Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace. Other community identities have gained popularity and become more established recently, including Greenwood Heights and South Park Slope.
Sunset Park consists of a strong residential community, two thriving commercial strips, 5th and 8th Avenues, and a large industrial area, mainly west of 3rd Avenue, along the waterfront. It is bifurcated by the Gowanus Expressway and is bordered to the south by the Long Island Rail Road cut. The 23-acre facility, Sunset Park, has an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a recreation center and a large open space with spectacular views of the harbor.
Windsor Terrace and the northern part of the district consist of a smaller residential community with three main commercial strips on 5th and 7th Avenues and Prospect Park West. Windsor Terrace is surrounded by the natural boundaries of Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery. The Gothic Brownstone “gatehouse” at the cemetery’s entrance is a New York City- landmark and the most widely known symbol of the community.
The District has been home to generations of immigrants, Irish and Italian and Scandinavian in the early 20th century and before. Mid-century saw a population influx from Puerto Rico, then immigrants from the Dominican Republic and from central and South America. The 1980s saw a large increase in residents from China and the 90s began an influx from Mexico, more rural areas of China and, to a lesser extent, the Middle East. Our community is extremely diverse and yet our populations live peacefully side by side making for a family-friendly neighborhood.
Community residents have learned to organize to fight for resources and demand change and our collective action has produced positive results. We defeated a floating power plant in 2004 that would have been taller than any building in the area and longer than the Titanic. We rezoned most of our residential community in 2005 and 2009. After a 40-year effort, we finally built a local high school in 2009 and followed that up with six additional schools and three more in progress. We finished our 197-a Plan, which calls for the preservation and enhancement of our industrial waterfront, improved environmental performance and additional recreation opportunities on our waterfront and it was passed by the City. New businesses are bringing investments, industries and jobs to our waterfront. The Community Board, along with six community organizations, negotiated a reduction in emissions from two of our local power plants. We are home to a bio-technology center, enormous economic development investments at Industry City, Liberty View Plaza, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Bush Terminal and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal and we have the capacity to continue to grow our industrial sector with good-paying jobs for local residents.
We have led the local effort to improve pedestrian safety and redesign our streets for safety and mobility improvements. We created the first committee in the City on last mile trucking and been a citywide leader on the issue. We lead on finding innovative ways to reach out to all of our residents. We were the first Community Board to create a committee and access and ability, to break down barriers and find solutions for accessing public spaces and meetings. Clearly, positive changes and investments are being made in our community, but more needs to be done for a community that had been left behind in the past.
Our Board has been forward-looking and aggressive in our pursuit of investments and infrastructure improvements that will enhance the lives and livelihoods of our residents, workers and business owners. We are proud to have held thirty-five community meetings over two years to educate our residents and take feedback before we deliberated on Industry City’s proposed rezoning of much of the waterfront. We have welcomed the Brooklyn Nets practice facility, Steiner Studios (currently under development), the waterfront greenway (currently under partial construction), the rehabilitation of 4th Avenue as a more pedestrian-friendly corridor and, soon, Equinor, which will build its new offshore wind turbine construction and onshore power facility on our waterfront, making Sunset Park the hub of New York City’s green energy revolution.
However, there continue to be sections of our community that have not received sufficient investments and improvements and this continues to leave many of our residents behind. Our community has overcrowded schools, an insufficient amount of parkland, the second oldest housing stock in NYC according to NYU, and a serious lack of affordable and senior housing units. We do more than our fair share when it comes to sanitation infrastructure, vehicle storage, power production and housing the homeless. Our waterfront access is extremely limited. There are concerns that the investments being made may not have a positive impact on the local residents and may exacerbate economic pressures and displacement. Many of our streets remain dangerous to cross and have crumbling infrastructure. Public transportation does not extend far enough and is in need of upgrades. We do not have fiber-optic cable and more than 20% of households in Sunset Park do not have internet service, according to a recent survey. The Gowanus Expressway is under constant construction and continues to bring 50 million emission-spewing vehicles through our community every year.