http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/brooklyn-bridge-parks-long-path-to-development.html 2016-09-16 22:16:14 Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Long Path to Development Two books, both by interested parties, examine a 1.3-mile restoration along the East River. === The redevelopment of the World Trade Center site since 2001 has produced a number of tomes. Lynne B. Sagalyn’s “Power at Ground Zero” is already being hailed as a definitive history and a classic in urban studies. Two new books explore a somewhat less visible site across the East River, focusing on the tortured incubation of Brooklyn Bridge Park, which Joanne Witty, who is a lawyer and environmentalist, president of the local development corporation that developed the park’s master plan and vice chairwoman of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, and the journalist Henrik Krogius have written Nancy Webster, executive director of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, has collaborated with David Shirley, another journalist, on Both books, which demonstrate that success has many mothers, examine how the original plans by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for derelict piers were transformed through a unique partnership that invited public participation (raising the public’s expectations, unrealistically) and depended on residential development for the park to be self-sustaining. As Ms. Witty and Mr. Krogius write, the marvel, not miracle, occurred despite petty conflicts among public officials and without a Robert Moses to impose his own formula by fiat. Unlike Professor Sagalyn’s, these two books are by interested parties, but both attempt to present a full picture. “Although we have tried to be complete and factual, we are not entirely neutral,” Ms. Witty and Mr. Krogius write. “We are reminded again and again that the alternative would have been far worse.” Labor Day notwithstanding, it’s still summer for a few more days, and this time of year is as good as any to celebrate the city’s greenswards. Several other new books offer some guidance. “Green Metropolis: The Extraordinary Landscapes of New York City as Nature, History and Design” In “Sidewalk Gardens of New York” “The New York Botanical Garden”