💸 How Much it Costs to Beautify Fulton Street

🌟 Author’s Note

Hello and welcome to the 2 new subscribers of the Better Block Project, bringing our group to 122 members 📈 

📆 Reminder: Fulton Street Trash Clean Up: Next Saturday, December 13th, 10am-12pm

Next Saturday, we’re planning a 🧹Trash Clean Up of Fulton Street, focusing on Fulton Street from Classon to Bedford. We will plan to meet at Cafe Calaca at 10am (505 Franklin Avenue), and are working with DSNY to get bags, gloves and brooms for the efforts. We will target the troubling spots including the Franklin and Fulton bus stop and Spencer and Fulton Street. Bring yourself, bring your friends and come help ensure the street is clean, at least for 1 day!

🪴 How Much it Costs to Beautify Fulton Street

We are continuing to advocate for the improvement of the Fulton and Franklin Avenue bus stop. This week, we followed up with the Community Officer at Precinct 79 regarding moving the 🔦 lighting, which is now sitting on Fulton Street, to the proper location on Franklin Avenue and Lefferts Place, where it was originally promised to be more than 3 months ago. 

While we wait, we are also starting to explore opportunities to invest money in beautifying the block, as a way to encourage better behavior and replace the damaged bus stop that currently resides there. In addition to this, we’ve also explored ways to invest in other areas of the street, like adding decorative planters, to discourage trash being discarded near trash bins. So, how much does it cost to make some of these improvements?

We’ve started to get data from various sources on what it would take add a few enhancements, including:

• A new 🎨 mural on the wall of the Franklin Avenue bus stop (note, this has already been budgeted a part of the Atlantic Avenue Mixed Use Plan)

• Adding 🪴planters near each trash bin on Fulton street, to discourage illegal dumping next to the bins

• Building out a new 🚌 JCDecaux bus stop to replace the old MTA bus stops that currently reside there

There’s definitely more that can be done, such as adding more 💡 lighting or 🌳 trees, but each of these small improvements will show we’re truly taking care of our public spaces. Evidence suggests this plays a role in not only beautifying the block, but also reducing crime in the area.

Each of these enhancements comes with a cost. We’ve learned that the mural going up on the wall at Franklin Avenue near Fulton Street has a budget of $50,000 (note, this is already included in the plan). Thanks to some research from Tim, on our 🐯 Fulton Trash Tiger Team, we’ve learned installing Brooklyn Planters costs about $2,000-$2,500. Note, if you walk around Clinton Hill, you probably have seen these planters already on Classon and Gates Avenue.

Finally, building a new JCDecaux bus stop is estimated at $60,000. Note, none of these estimates are official, and are based on what other projects like this have cost in the past. You could imagine a world where a few hundred thousand dollars was invested in the full block and what that could yield in terms of overall beautification and quality of life.

💸 How Could This be Funded?

Many parks and beautification projects in the city are built through a combination of public and private funding. The High Line is a great example. This is probably one of the most beautiful parks in New York City that runs on an elevated rail line in Chelsea. The story of the High Line being built is not that different from origins of the Better Block Project. Two friends who met at a Community Board Meeting, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, fell in love with the abandoned rail line and decided to build a park.

The park initially cost $152M, of which $112M was provided by the city and $20M by the Federal government. However, 90 percent of the Park’s ongoing $3M maintenance budget is funded by Friends of the High Line, a non-profit. The reason they privately funded the park was to ensure it stayed in good condition, given the ongoing challenges with NYC Parks budget (something we have detailed in our writing about tree maintenance). This group also brought in $30M in 2011, to fund the third expansion of the park. The full funding model is detailed here.

Could we do something similar on Fulton Street, albeit on a smaller scale? We’ve already started having conversations with nearby property owners and buildings about funding enhancements to the area. I even learned that a similar one-time capital investment was made on Fulton Street 10-20 years ago. In whatever we do, strong community partnership is critical to success. We want to ensure that the improvements made reflect what everyone here truly wants, so the end result is something we all enjoy and can feel a part of. I’d love to hear thoughts and feedback from everyone on this idea. If we were going to make a big investment in Fulton Street, what would you want to see?

As a reminder, I hope to see some of you at next Saturday’s Trash Clean Up on Fulton Street. We’ll meet at Cafe Calaca at 10am and all supplies will be provided. As always, if you like what we’re doing here at the Better Block Project, forward this to someone else you know who wants to do more work in the community!

See you next week,

David