Photo: Spencer Platt/2009 Getty Images
The plan to put a velodrome into Brooklyn Bridge Park, funded by a $50 million donation from reclusive cycling enthusiast Joshua Rechnitz, has come to an end because even that amount of money couldn’t get the project done in its proposed location. Between aesthetic concerns, flooding worries, and pressure from neighbors, “the neighborhood was just too expensive,” The New York Times reported. “You can’t build a facility of this nature, at this site, at this budget,” said Greg Brooks, director of the nonprofit N.Y.C. Fieldhouse, which is behind the project. But he said the funding was still there, and they would take another lap around proposed alternate sites and try to get it built somewhere else.
