If you've ever had to cross Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, you know how deadly it is traffic-wise, even if it's supposed to symbolize the glory of the New Brooklyn, with Meier's glassy new pile, One Prospect Park, right there and all. So these nongovernmental groups went ahead and had a design contest to fix it up, and the winner was a French design team that proposed that beautifully landscaped walkways billow right over the traffic. The city says "no way"' will such a plan happen, which is not so surprising given that the design team was from Nantes, which is one of those French places where you only pronounce three letters out of six. Anyway, the irony of the contest was that, to view the entries of a safe GAP, you had to actually risk your life and cross Flatbush to the center of the GAP. But apparently 2,000 people did, and they all survived, which is kind of an accomplishment in itself. [Brooklyn Paper]