The festivities are intended to draw attention, once again, to the need to re-open the Stanton park building, currently boarded up and used for storage, to community use.  The park is seeing an escalation of troubling uses including drug use and trafficking, the children’s playground is avoided by local families, and the closed building sits at the center of this activity.  Re-opening the building for programming could have a significant and immediate impact in making the park safe; it can anchor NYC’s efforts to bring climate resiliency to parks and re-establish a welcoming park for all.

Return Stanton ParkHouse to the Neighborhood as FDR Intended It To Be Used!

Fierce and honest talk from our community leaders and representatives Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Council Member Chin’s Gigi Li and Pat Olan, NY State Senator Brian Kavanagh, CB3 Chair (and neighbor) Alysha Coleman, Rafael Hernandez Houses Resident Association Leader Felicia Gordon,  Democratic State Committee Chris Marte, and our MC SDR Coalition’s VP Deborah Jeffreys-Glass.

Thank you to FABnyc for the love and care and work that went into spearheading the creation of a beautiful, safe, welcoming umbrella for the neighborhood and visitors to live in for a day. A chance to imagine what it would be like if we had this space available to the neighborhood – everyday.

Stanton Building Task Force: FABnyc  and staff (and the organizing team leadership of Emilio Martinez Poppe and Dakota Scott) ensuring the arts & fun, GreenMap keeping us honest about climate change and sustainable practice, University Settlement bringing the depth of advocacy for over a century (and dancing & drumming!) and SDR Coalition park advocacy since 1982.

Beautiful artwork, spirited/tireless dancing, vital information on keeping our community safe, 5th Precinct’s Bozzo/Urena, The Stanton Street Block Association, Crime Victims advocate Panarella, Alexis Mercer with Narcon Training from the Educational Alliance,  Stanton Street CSA share info, block association info, puppet show, generous donations from our neighborhood businesses, Bob Humber’s M’Finda Kalunga Garden chess matches, Pam Ito from The Hort and Emma Lazarus High School‘s seed planting,Neighbors to Save Rivington House, The Illuminator, re-Tree planting, volunteers who worked hard, and thank you to the Sara Roosevelt Park’s NYC Park’s Department‘s Stanton Building Park’s staff and PEP led by our Parks Manager: Elizabeth Martinez.

As Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer (and everyone echoed): “The LES knows how to fight, knows how to stick together to build community”.

Most of all, thanks to neighbors who understand we can decide that no one gets left out – and then do the work to make sure of it.

We will have this park safe and beautiful and fun to be young in and to grow old in – and enjoy all the years in between.

More of our Children:

VOTE

To find out who is on your ballot, where to vote use this link.

From BoweryBoogie:

“Another Davey Drill was spotted on Forsyth Street last week (above Delancey), but as before, it’s not related to the controversial Rivington House condo conversion. But rather, an infrastructure project by the MTA.

“…Installing this machinery was deemed “a critical life safety project” since the operating M line equipment was built in 1962 and is “too small and one-directional to be useful anymore.”

“Now, they finally are. The city will officially discuss its plans next week with the Transportation subcommittee of Community Board 3 (September 17).”

1.    Approval of previous month’s minutes
Joint meeting with Land Use Committee (6:30-7:30)
2.    CB 3 comments on Draft Scope of Work for proposed Manhattan Detention Center
Transportation Committee (7:30)
3.    NY City Transit: presentation on work to construct emergency ventilation plant on Forysth btwn Delancey / Rivington St
4.    Bike Corral for 218 E 10th St (Rai Rai Ken)
5.    Vote to adjourn

At Stanton Street between Forsyth and Chrystie

Stanton Street between Forsyth and Chrystie   “It’s Our Park Day” in Sara D. Roosevelt Park at Stanton Street brings together residents and community organizations for an afternoon of creative activities and presentations and an evening hour of interactive projections by The Illuminator.   The festivities are intended to draw attention, once again, to the need to re-open the Stanton park building, currently boarded up and used for storage, to community use.  The park is seeing an escalation of troubling uses including drug use and trafficking, the children’s playground is avoided by local families, and the closed building sits at the center of this activity.  Re-opening the building for programming could have a significant impact in making the park safe and welcoming to all.   There will be creative arts activities good for all ages, dance classes and performances, a bike repair workshop, and information from multiple community groups.  Partners organizing the event include the Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition, Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc), University Settlement, and Green Map System. Additional participating organizations include Narcan,  Stanton Street Block Association, Stanton Street CSA, M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden, Neighbors to Save Rivington House, Loisaida Inc. and more! Afternoon session — 2pm-5pm The afternoon will include speeches from organizers and local representatives along with live music, dancing lessons, art-making activities, free bike repair services, and opportunities to get involved in the campaign. Evening session — 8:30pm-9:30pm The evening will feature projections by the Illuminator of artwork made during the afternoon sessions along with historical images from the site and neighborhood visions for its futures.   It’s Our Park Day Saturday, September 15th, 2018 2pm-5pm (Guest speakers at 2:30pm) Evening projections 8:30pm-9:30pm Sara D. Roosevelt Park Stanton Street between Forsyth and Chrystie

The Kenmare Little Italy Loop Coalition is concerned that buses coming over the Williamsburg Bridge will flood narrow streets.

The group is calling on the city and the MTA to rethink their plan.

Coverage here:

NY1 News

From the Lo-Down

From BoweryBoogie

From NYPost

Reminding us of the murder in the same area two weeks ago.

NOW could we have serious movement on returning the Stanton Building to community use to help anchor this area with an active positive use?

We need them.

Word on the street is that we have 50+ homeless people sleeping in the park.

No bathrooms from Grand Street to Houston Street.

Need open, supervised, monitored, with maintenance nearby.

Human dignity, health issues, sanitation issues.

A short term solution?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From Gothamist:

A Decade After Their Debut, 15 Public Toilets Are Still Sitting In A Warehouse In Queens

“In 2008, New York City unveiled the first of 20 self-cleaning public toilets to great fanfare and bathroom humor. “What a relief!” deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff said in a statement, while DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan initiated the first official flush at the inaugural public toilet in Madison Square Park. But if you’ve never seen or used one of the toilets, which cost 25 cents for 15 minutes of uninterrupted bathroom time, that may be because 15 of them are still sitting in a warehouse in Queens.”

Read more here.

From the NYTimes:

“The first suggestion to Rafe Pomerance that humankind was destroying the conditions necessary for its own survival came on Page 66 of the government publication EPA-600/7-78-019. It was a technical report about coal, bound in a coal-black cover with beige lettering — one of many such reports that lay in uneven piles around Pomerance’s windowless office on the first floor of the Capitol Hill townhouse that, in the late 1970s, served as the Washington headquarters of Friends of the Earth. In the final paragraph of a chapter on environmental regulation, the coal report’s authors noted that the continued use of fossil fuels might, within two or three decades, bring about “significant and damaging” changes to the global atmosphere.”

Pomerance had one big question about the coal report. If the burning of coal, oil and natural gas could invite global catastrophe, why had nobody told him about it? If anyone in Washington — if anyone in the United States — should have been aware of such a danger, it was Pomerance.”