A multi-million dollar plan for two greenspaces in East New York and Brownsville is underway in order to promote accessibility and cultural awareness for all.
Rendering of the redesigned Sankofa Park in the New Lots section of East New York (Image: Parks Department)
A redesigned East New York park will get new green space, playground equipment and a memorial for the enslaved Africans buried at the site hundreds of years ago.
The city’s Parks Department unveiled the details for its reconstruction of Sankofa Park, located at Livonia Avenue between Barbey Street and Schenck Avenue, at a Community Board 5 meeting on Tuesday night.
The new proposal was the result of a multiyear community consultation process. In 2010, historians reviewing a map from 1878 discovered that the site had previously been a burial ground for Africans brought to the United States as part of the transatlantic slave trade.