Brooklyn artist to create footbridge to Governors Island

Brooklyn Heights local Nancy Nowacek has designed a cheap and buoyant way to walk across the channel

The channel between Brooklyn and Governors Island and a bridge-insert prototype by Nancy Nowacek
The channel between Brooklyn and Governors Island and a bridge-insert prototype by Nancy Nowacek

WEEKENDEDITION Back when livestock still grazed on Brooklyn’s waterfront, a pedestrian channel used by farmers ran between Governors Island and western Brooklyn. Now, a Brooklyn Heights based artist wants to bring it back.

At a distance of only 1,200 feet, or about four city blocks, artist Nancy Nowacek wants to bring a foot path back to the stretch once known as Buttermilk Channel, according to Curbed.

“The question became ‘Could it be possible to reconnect Brooklyn to Governors Island by hand, with the most minimal means necessary, without large, industrial infrastructure?,” Nowacek told Brooklyn Based. Now, two years later, she says that she has found a solution.

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After much experimenting, Nowacek has created what she is calling “the Citizen Bridge,” a collection of plywood planks that are fastened to buoyant shipping drums. The pieces will be linked together and cross the channel between Red Hook and the island — naturally in cooperation with the Coast Guard.

The project is still being tested and is seeking funding. [Curbed] Christopher Cameron