Mayor Bloomberg made the first stop on his five borough legacy tour Tuesday to open new ice skating rinks at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park – and crow about both the expansion of park land under his administration and the resurgence of the now-trendy borough.
“Brooklyn has really been knocking the cover off the ball,” Bloomberg said, ticking off a raft of statistics on the borough’s growth, from rising graduation rates to 36 new hotels that have opened their doors.
“From Red Hook to Bushwick, neighborhoods that once suffered from disinvestment and abandonment and were scarred by crime and blight today are growing communities where families want to move, where businesses want to open,” Bloomberg said.
He bragged that his administration has added 870 new acres of parkland and sunk more than $5 billion into capital projects for parks.
Tuesday, he cut the ribbon for a $74 million project that includes two skating rinks, which will double as roller skating and swimming spots in warmer weather.
It replaces the old, 1960s-era Wollman rink, which closed a few years ago to make way for the new project.
Bloomberg declined to lace up the skates himself. “Not today,” he said, recalling that the last time he skated was in high school. “After that, you’ll have to check the official schedule or something like that.”
As he takes his farewell tour, Bloomberg said he wants to highlight education, increasing life expectancy, infrastructure and job creation, and crime that has fallen so low that it “defies imagination.”
Bloomberg also said he hoped Police Commissioner Ray Kelly would join the consulting firm that he is forming with several top aides to help other cities replicate Bloomberg-style policies.
“It’s been a pleasure and a great thing for the city that we’ve been able to work together for 12 years, so if I can work with Ray Kelly any time, any place, I will certainly do that,” he said, adding he doesn’t know what the top cop’s plans are.
“We’ve got enormous demand, and we’ve had it for years now, from other cities around the world, not just around the country, of how do you do these wonderful things?” he said of his impetus for forming the consulting group. “The people who are doing it are very proud of what they’ve done and they want to be able to continue it.”
