The park currently consists of two non-contiguous sections along the East River and is eventually planned to reach into Greenpoint at Quay Street.

The site of the present-day park was used by manufacturing businesses in the mid-19th century, especially the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal.

The community center, which also houses offices for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, includes features intended to be environmentally sustainable, such as a sloping green roof, solar panels, and geothermal heating.

[1] According to an 1854 account from the Brooklyn Eagle, the main tributary to McCarren Park formed the boundary between Williamsburg and Greenpoint.

Seven years later, a married couple, Dirck Volkertsen de Noorman and Christina Vigne, started the area's first farm along the creek.

The Noorman farm was believed to have been at the present-day intersection of Franklin and Calyer Streets, two blocks north of Bushwick Inlet.

At the time, Bushwick Inlet was unofficially referred to as "Noorman's Kil" during its early years; that name is retained by a bar in Williamsburg.

Charles Pratt founded the Astral Oil Works factory at the mouth of Bushwick Inlet in 1857.

[5] The USS Monitor was built in the Continental Iron Works at Bushwick Inlet, and it was launched in October 1861.

[6]: 13  Subsequently, Monitor fought against the CSS Virginia in the Battle of Hampton Roads during the American Civil War.

The bridge connecting Franklin Street and Kent Avenue was demolished, and the marsh in McCarren Park was filled in.

However, the city also required more electricity at the time, and a 1,100 megawatts (1,500,000 hp) power plant was being proposed for the Bayside Oil site.

The museum received $600,000 in funding in 2015, which was derived from a $19.2 settlement paid out as part of the cleanup of the Greenpoint oil spill in nearby Newtown Creek.

The largest impediment to developing the park was an 11-acre parcel occupied by a warehouse for the company CitiStorage, which was in the middle of the proposed parkland.

[24] The New York Times estimated that at this rate, it would cost $120 million to acquire the CitiStorage parcel, and NYC Parks was not willing to pay this much.

[28] That December, the city allocated $4.6 million toward the cleanup of the Bushwick Inlet site for future conversion to parkland.

[20] Politicians proposed to cover the park's increasing price tag by levying property taxes on nearby developments.

[20] Other politicians representing the area, including U.S. representative Carolyn Maloney, Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams, New York City public advocate Letitia James, and New York state senator Daniel Squadron also advocated for the park.

[38] Activists continued to hold protests and rallies to draw government officials' attention to the park proposal.

[39] In 2016, a proposal for the ten Bayside Oil tanks on the site, entitled "Maker Park", was unveiled.

[43] The Maker Park plan would convert the oil tankers into attractions such as a theater and hanging gardens.

[45][46] The city stated that the oil tankers were heavily polluted, and that the site needed to be cleaned before it could be repurposed into a park.

[52][53] The permanent replacement for the popup opened on weekends starting in April 2022, and it began operating on weekdays in June 2022.

[57] At the end of that year, the city government announced it would spend $75 million to demolish the CitiStorage warehouse and construct the park's next phase on that site.

[58][59] NYC Parks began redeveloping the Motiva site in March 2024,[60][61] at which point that project was slated to be complete in 2026.

[68] The roof of the 13,300-square-foot (1,240 m2) community center,[26] designed by Kiss + Cathcart, contains a public landscape looking out to the East River and the Manhattan skyline.

[69][26] A meandering path up the grassy slope serves a series of activity areas, and the top of the building contains a shaded overlook.

[25][26] When it opened in 2013, the building had the highest percentage of on-site solar energy generation, green roof irrigation entirely from rainfall and reclaimed water, and zero stormwater discharge to the combined sewer.

[25] A 66-kilowatt photovoltaic array is atop the shade structure along Kent Avenue, and was designed to generate half of the building's annual energy usage.