Here’s an excerpt from Jake Mooney’s piece in the New York Times City Section about the changes in JJ Byrne Park:

I a way, the fall of 2004 was a more innocent, more trusting time
around the handball courts at J. J. Byrne Park in Park Slope. The
construction site next door on Fourth Avenue, which would years later
sprout a 12-story condominium building, was still a fresh hole in the
ground.

Yes, the work there digging the building’s
foundation had destabilized part of the park, closing two of the eight
courts and an asphalt field. But the building’s developer had agreed to
fix them. The repair work, a city parks department spokesman said at
the time, would most likely be done by April — April 2005.

Fall
turned into winter, and to spring, and soon April 2005 came and went.
As did April 2006, 2007 and 2008. The building, by Brooklyn-based
Boymelgreen Developers, grew taller, and along the way it got a name —
Novo Park Slope. People moved in. And through it all, the repair work remained unfinished, the handball courts and asphalt field fenced off.