News

With appreciation to Farmer Ted, The Stanton Community Supported Agriculture or CSA and the M’Finda Gardener Chicken Caregivers.

From Debra Jeffreys-Glass VP Sara Roosevelt Park Community Coalition

We will plant more bulbs and work on getting a water source here!

Nice to have a visit with “Uncle” before the end of summer.

And.. a big Thank you to our stalwart crew and the ROAR Festival!!

And..

Work to be done to remove broken low-brick wall that invites all kinds of misuse!

Build a Block 5^th Pct meetings Now in person. Wednesday at 6:30pm November 16, 2022

Call for location (212) 334-0711

Some of our local officers have left for promotions. We wish them well but will miss the work they have done and their hard won knowledge about this neighborhood and its people.

Local policing can make an area much safer – they know the people and can act with that knowledge.

Good luck Officers Bozzo, and Urena and now Sgt Prado. Best of luck!

and glad to have PO Tsering Dhundup and PO Jasmin Mia!

Sign the Petition to Preserve The Pit with upgrades and repairs!

Sign HERE

Thanks “Doc” for keeping track of the Park. And thank you neighbors and parkgoers!

and remember to PlayFair for Parks!

NY4P in the News  Here is the Friday morning parks news round up. 

“We cannot alone overcome the systemic failures that have maintained the status quo we know today,” writes K Webster, President of the Sara Roosevelt Park Community Coalition and Play Fair member. “We need our policymakers to prioritize parks equity starting with investing and centering equity in a citywide plan.”

Op-Ed | Local communities have been fighting for our parks — it’s time for the city to help (amNY, September 22, 2022)

“In 1934 a newspaper editor celebrated the opening of Sara Roosevelt Park as “the birth of a new Lower East Side.” Built to provide relief for those living in tenement housing, it was by far the largest park serving the diverse communities across the Lower East Side and Chinatown.

For decades, this park lived up to that promise.

But as the city deteriorated in the late 50’s to 70’s, the park spiraled into violence with drug and sex trafficking. Park centers closed until the neighborhood stood up to wrest it back.

Out of those ashes, along with traditional park spaces, arose the Hua Mei Bird Sanctuary, M’Finda Kalunga Garden, Golden Age Center, bocce court, turtle pond, chicken coop, and the unique ‘Pit’.

Today, the park remains an essential refuge of gardening, nature, chess and sports, playgrounds, shared resources, and celebrations honoring cultures in this stretch of the city. “

Read on here

“Our community does the work.”

Info below:

The Stanton Building Task Force was formed by the Sara D Roosevelt Park Coalition, University Settlement, Green Map System, FABnyc, and Keena Suh’s Pratt School of Design Students to return this Park building to the community’s use.

The parkhouse, built for the public in 1934, was boarded up during the City’s financial crisis of the 1970s. During the 1980’s, after neighborhood volunteers, the 5th Precinct police and local non-profits reclaimed the park from violence, murder, and drug and sex traffickers, it became storage for all of Manhattan’s parks.  Promises from the Parks Department of its return for public use date back to 1982.

It’s time to return it.

With deep appreciation for this document to Wendy Brawer and Green Map System 

Updated Draft Proposals for Upgrades & Safety Measures: Grand north to Delancey south

And Please Sign Our Petition: “Don’t Bury The Pit!” 

Draft proposal for upgrading Delancey/Broome Street/Grand section in Sara Roosevelt Park

Current Use: 4 large garden plots (one, the Hua Mei Bird Sanctuary, 3 main entryways, one Parkhouse (serving all five NYC boroughs), Park’s staff parking inside the park at Broome, a synthetic turf soccer field, and ‘The Pit’.

Entryways

-Grand Street: Open up for maximum visibility. Remove high brick walls alongside Grand to create maximum visibility from the street. Repair sloping entryway.

-Delancey Street: Renovate entryway for wheelchair accessibility. Redo plaza with permeable pavers.

Bird Sanctuary and three plots on Delancey

–Hua Mei Bird Garden: Install new 7’ wrought iron fence surrounding this garden for safety. Remove dilapidated temporary fencing to restore gate to original opening between ‘The Pit’ and the Garden to allow for two egresses in an emergency. Remove two benches nearest the Bird Garden that overlook the Pit.

–Three front gardens: remove broken low brick walls that front the side plots that are misused.

–Pipe a water source for all gardens – Bruckner boxes and water fountain.

-Seating in plaza: fasten 2 small metal tables with attached seating – close to street.

– Dept. of Sanitation install trash cans both sides of Delancey (ala ChinatownBID’s on Grand).

Preserve/Repair/Upgrade ‘The Pit’ Area: [See details of the Petition and Sign here!].

‘The Pit’ is a vital, flexible, shared and uniquely multi-use adaptive space. It’s the areas main anchor of positive use. 

Preserve the uniquely flexible Pit area – reimagined for even more flexibility.

Street soccer, ball hockey, bike polo, skateboarders, skaters, uni-cyclers. Children learn biking, Tai Chi, running track, Burmese Water Festival, New Museum, ROAR resource fair, Chinese Progressive Assoc., Stanton CSA, CB3, bike helmet giveaways, local children’s programming, movies under the stars, outdoor roller rink, with headphones piping music into participants’ ears.

1. Unclog and repair drainage in The Pit at the southern end, which has been a longstanding problem.

2. Addition of a community ceramic mural to the walls surrounding “The Pit” to emphasize it as an actively used space.

3. Installation of “Goalpher,” a 4 foot high and 6 foot wide subterranean goal system that can be opened when the community wants to play soccer, ball hockey, or bike polo, and put away underground when the community wants to use the space for any other purpose. When the goal is stored away, it is stored underground and the space can operate as if it isn’t there.

4. Return benches to the southern end and repaint benches surrounding the Pit.

5. End parking of Parks staff inside the park in the Broome area in front of the parkhouse.

6. Additional lighting to enhance late night play and all around safety.

As funding allows:

-Install permeable pavers Grand to Delancey – work in sections to allow some areas to remain open.

-Activate the Broome Parkhouse with a shared use that dynamically engages parkgoers here.

Don’t Bury “The Pit”!

With thanks to all our Park workers and volunteers.