5. No Housing, No Brooklyn Bridge Park

In order to ease the qualms surrounding private development, the park portion of the Brooklyn Bridge Park was built first when construction began in 2007.

“…we wanted to reassure people that we were not a private developer; we were a private entity,” Witty explained. “We were building a park, and we were only building enough housing as we needed, on the edges, in order to pay for the maintenance of the park” (which currently adds up to $15 million per year).

In summary: “no housing, no park,” Witty states.