Last week, the MTA removed two B54 stops and moved a third stop. These changes were made to improve service be creating three-block spacing between stops.

Both the eastbound and westbound B54 stops at Kent Avenue were removed. There are existing stops one block away at Franklin Avenue.

The westbound stop at Emerson Place was moved one block east to Classon Avenue.

Public recycling bins now stand at four busy intersections on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. The following locations have a bin for paper and a bin for bottles and cans: Ashland and Myrtle (Southwest corner), Adelphi and Myrtle (Northeast corner), Clinton and Myrtle (Southeast corner), Hall and Myrtle (Southeast corner). Each pair is adjacent to a regular trash bin, so pedestrians will have the ability to properly dispose of all items.

Recycling bins and clear liners are provided by the New York City Department of Sanitation through their Public Space Recycling Program. On Tuesdays, The Doe Fund will move bags of recyclables to the curb and Sanitation will remove them overnight. However, if a recycling bin becomes full before the pick-up day, The Doe Fund will transport the full bag to the Red Apple Supermarket on Myrtle Avenue and Ashland Place to store until collection. We will evaluate public space recycling on Myrtle over the next year, and depending on the public’s response, may expand to more locations in the future.

Please help keep Myrtle clean!

Over 50 people were in attendance at last night's Park Avenue Safety Workshop. Everyone had a lot to say about which blocks and which intersections on Park Avenue along the BQE were the least safe, and even more to say about how the city could make improvements. Attendees split into 5 different groups, representing 5 different geographic areas of Park Avenue from west to east, so participants were able to discuss the very specific issues and challenges affecting each block and how to make them safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.

The goal of this workshop was to identify, prioritize, and locate specific enhancements that will improve pedestrian safety and calm vehicular traffic on Park Avenue between Navy Street and Steuben Street. Given the number of students that are crossing Park to and from school, and the number of residents that are living on Park or adjacent to it, improving safety needs to be prioritized by city agencies.

This workshop was the first step in creating a community-based plan that can be used to advocate for important changes, both short-term and long-term. A special thanks to Architecture for Humanity New York for putting in countless hours to prepare for and facilitate the workshop, and to now help pull together everyone's ideas into the makings of a draft plan.

Stay tuned for the scheduling of additional meetings where these preliminary findings and ideas will be presented.

Have you ever tried to cross Park Avenue in Fort Greene or Clinton Hill? If so, you may have walked for blocks to find a safe crossing, or maybe you just decided to dodge speeding traffic. We're sure you've though to yourself, 'shouldn't this street be safer for pedestrians?' Well, we agree. It should be safer!

We've held three previous workshops about the area under and around the elevated BQE in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, and safety was the primary concern at each of them. Have something to share about safety on Park Avenue? Join your neighbors at this workshop!

Park Avenue Pedestrian Safety Workshop Thursday, November 3rd 6-8:30pm Benjamin Banneker Academy (71-77 Clinton Avenue @ Park)

The goal of this workshop is to identify, prioritize, and locate specific enhancements that will improve pedestrian safety and calm vehicular traffic on Park Avenue between Navy Street and Steuben Street. Given the number of students that are crossing Park to and from school, and the number of residents that are living on Park or adjacent to it, we feel that improving safety should be prioritized by city agencies. This workshop is the first step in creating a community-based plan that we can use to advocate for important changes, both short-term and long-term. Architecture for Humanity will be assisting with workshop facilitation and development of the plan.

Hope you can make it! Email dan@myrtleavenue.org or call 718-230-1689 if you have any questions. Download the workshop flyer here.

After just one week, three Myrtle tree guards and one Myrtle bench are fully adopted! Thank you to our generous neighbors, whose donations will be recognized via bench plaques and tree guard signage. Adopt-A-Bench and Adopt-A-TreeGuard funds will go toward 5 years of caring for Myrtle's new street furniture and street trees.

And now we've launched an opportunity for small donors to contribute toward keeping Myrtle green via HelpersUnite, a recently-launched crowd-giving community where you can raise funds for creative and cause-based projects, and sell tickets to your special events, all in one place. You can contribute as little or as much as you want, to help MARP reach its goal of getting all 20 benches and all 20 tree guards adopted.

Visit MARP's HelpersUnite project page to join the effort!

As many of you have seen by now, twenty custom-designed tree guards and twenty tree guard benches were installed on Myrtle Avenue between Washington Park and Classon Avenue. The overall design of the guards and benches is the result of a collaborative process with the Pratt Design Incubator and the local artists who submitted winning designs for the individual, laser-cut panels. Funding for the design phase, which began in 2007, and the first phase of installation came from the NY State Division of Housing & Community Renewal, the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation, NY State Council for the Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership Business Improvement District.

Myrtle's new tree guards are both functional and durable, providing opportunities to sit for the avenue's pedestrians, and also serve as Myrtle’s latest public art project, offering a 'canvas' that reflects Fort Greene and Clinton Hill’s creative spirit. The panels for each tree guard were designed by local artists, who were selected through an open call for proposals in 2010. Designs range from graphic patterns to skylines to maps, and some even reference the former Myrtle Avenue elevated train. The guards will serve as protection for the avenue’s street trees, while providing much-needed intermittent seating for pedestrians and those waiting for the B54 bus. Street trees not only bring an aesthetic appeal to the commercial strip, but also play an important role in filtering the air and providing shady respite from the afternoon sun.

Through a program similar to the NYC Parks Department’s adopt-a-bench initiative, we are seeking sponsors to support our greening efforts and to fund street furniture maintenance. Each ‘adoption’ commitment is for 5 years, and costs $2,500 for a tree guard bench and $1,500 for a tree guard (without a bench). Sponsors will be acknowledged on bench plaques or guard signage, as well as on www.myrtleavenue.org. Resources raised through this program will provide supplemental maintenance funding for the street furniture, the tree bed, and the tree itself, including: replacement of damaged bench planks, painting of panels and posts, tree bed weeding and mulching, tree fertilizer, pruning, special tree care, as needed, and tree bed plantings.

A full project history of the Myrtle Street Furniture Design Initiative can be found here.

Adopt-A-Bench & Adopt-A-TreeGuard program details and forms can be found here.

There are still a few spots available for guests to join us at the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership BID Annual Meeting, with guest speaker NY City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The meeting is on Tuesday, September 27th, from 5-7pm at SoCo, 509 Myrtle Avenue. Drinks and light appetizers will be served. The meeting is open to the public, but RSVP is required.

RSVP at www.surveymonkey.com/s/MyrtleBIDAnnualMeeting2011.

The installation of the first phase of street furniture is complete! Next week we will add the signage decals to the tree guards, and soon we will add soil and mulch to the pits to complete this phase of the project. The guards and benches have received a fantastic response from Myrtle merchants and residents, which is exactly what we had hoped for.

Some in-progress photos can be seen on our Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myrtleavenue/sets/72157627378621281/

Please join us to celebrate on Monday, October 3rd at Putnam’s Pub & Cooker (Myrtle & Clinton) at 6pm. Interested in 'adopting' a bench or tree guard? We'll also be kicking-off our tree guard sponsorship program that night too in order to help us maintain the tree guards and benches for the next 5 years. RSVP to get two free drink tickets, to Meredith@myrtleavenue.org before September 28th. Hope to see you there!

We're a little more than half way done with installations of new tree guards and tree guard benches on the avenue. Check out progress here on our Flickr site! The panel art pictured here, "Elevation", was created by Genevieve Saucier.

Two new tree guards and two tree guards with benches arrived today on Myrtle between Hall and Washington. This one with panel art by James Petras. Stay tuned for more updates...

By the end of this month, 20 new tree guards and 20 new tree guard benches will dot the avenue’s block faces between Washington Park and Classon Avenue! The overall design of the tree guards is the result of a collaborative process that began in 2007 with the Pratt Design Incubator, which included a community workshop, field interviews and analysis by Pratt industrial design students, and a series of soft and hard prototypes. No sir, these are not your everyday-run-of-the-mill tree guards. The tree guards were created with a modular design that allows for customization – the panels on each of the guards were designed by local artists! We sent out an open call for panel designs last year, and selected 19 artists from the submissions to participate (see all the designs above!). Designs range from doilies to graphic patterns to skylines to maps, and some even reference the former Myrtle Avenue elevated train.

Hopefully you’ve already spied the prototype tree guard and prototype tree guard bench on the avenue. We installed these prototypes to fine-tune the designs, and to check out how people responded to them. Every day, we see dozens of B54 passengers at Myrtle and Washington enjoying the prototype bench while they wait for the bus. That’s exactly what we’d hoped for!

We’re serious about protecting our trees, but we saw this street furniture project as an opportunity for public art, too. Myrtle’s new tree guards are both functional and durable, and also offer a ‘canvas’ that reflects Fort Greene and Clinton Hill’s creative spirit. With over 200 trees in the Partnership’s Business Improvement District boundaries (we’re proud to claim responsibility for having over a quarter of those planted on the avenue, btw), we’re not able to provide guards for all of them in this round. We’re continuing to fundraise, and hope to release another open call for panel art early next year, and install additional guards in summer 2012.

Later this fall, we plan present opportunities to support the avenue’s greening efforts by ‘sponsoring’ benches, through a program similar to the NYC Parks Department’s adopt-a-bench initiative. Stay tuned for more information on this, for details on a celebration/reception in the fall, and photo-updates throughout the installation process! Have questions? Contact meredith@myrtleavenue.org.

Thanks to: New York Main Street Program, the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership Business Improvement District for supporting this project.