ABSTRACT
The two cases that follow are both long-standing promontory promenades with very different origins and design characteristics. The Brooklyn Heights Promenade tops a double-decked expressway that wraps around a steep bluff lining part of the city’s East River waterfront, and is of formal design. Its construction in the 1950s created a public space in front of a previously privatized bluff top. Santa Monica’s Palisades Park promenade runs along a cliff edge high above the city’s beach within a somewhat informally designed park. It dates from the mid-1880s, when claiming the bluff top for public use was one of the first moves of the city’s founders. They illustrate different approaches to making the most of difficult water’s edge locations.
