The Brooklyn Banks Reopens to Skaters, Bleak by Design

If, making your way from Chinatown to the water’s edge, say, you happen on a brick-paved expanse beneath the Brooklyn Bridge on a quiet afternoon, you might think you had stumbled on a forlorn and forgotten patch of Manhattan moated by the bridge’s ramps. Tree pits with no trees, concrete chess tables next to the roadway, a row of park benches inexplicably facing a wall of bricked-up arches — the place has a provisional look, as if it were either declining into blight or waiting to be finished. Arrive in the early morning, though, and you might come across a seniors’ Tai Chi class or a klatch of men…