BY BILL WEINBERG
“It’s amazing how sometimes the smallest things can give me a little hope for humanity’s future — at least enough to get me through the next few days… .”
Read on in The Villager
“Last week, the Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition, in cooperation with other community organizers, staged a brainstorming session and awareness-raising campaign in front of the Stanton Building… Yesterday’s meeting aimed to concretize those visions and to provide the community with the logistical tools needed to advocate for their interests.
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer (Photo: Luisa Rollenhagen)
Among those who met in the park at the BRC Senior Center were Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, representatives of City Council member Margaret Chin and State Assembly member Alice Cancel…
Webster said…the goal was to help create an “advocacy community” by letting people know how their voices could be heard in local government. “A lot of people don’t know how things actually work,” ….”
Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, echoed this sentiment. “What we’re doing is giving the community tools to be included in the public conversation,” … Susan Stetzer, district manager of the Community Board 3, explained the importance of … capital priorities for the Community Board…
Wendy Brawer…. of Green Map System,…said …“A lot of us don’t know how to use tools as all. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could help each other learn these basic life skills?”
Whether a bike repair co-op, solar-powered WiFi and charging station, showering and toilet facility for the homeless, computer center, library, book exchange, meeting area, or area for board games – everyone was excited about the possibilities here.
Jennifer Vallone of University Settlement House, Debra Jeffreys-Glass of M’Finda Kalunga Garden were the moderators and organizers. Paula Segal from 596 Acres gave a presentation on “Who owns Parks?”
This meeting is learn effective tools and information about how Parks works, where funding comes from, how to advocate for and who to advocate with, and to join forces with your neighbors, Parks, electeds, Community Board 3, and local organizations to insure this (and other resources) are used to the best possible advantage on behalf of the public and those whose neighborhood this Park lives in.
Want bathrooms? Want a community center? Show up, help, lend your smarts! We need you!
BE the squeaky wheel (our bike friends won’t mind oiling you!).
Join us.
Stanton Building Task Force Facebook
“Maymond Baba remembers playing ping pong inside the Stanton Street building as a teenager in the 1970s. … the building was home to a youth recreation center…. two decades later … the Stanton Street building [was] shuttered….
In front of the …building, A group of Chinese women were in perfect sync dancing Zumba hosted by the University Settlement House. Teenagers with the LUNGS Youth Program mulched tree beds around the building and filmed each other with cameras provided by DCTV. Amid the commotion, LES residents and community organizers shared their visions of what the Stanton Street building could become…”
Read the full article in the Lo-Down.
Can you believe it??
(and how do we get those bathrooms built?)
Workshops offering information, strategies, tools, discussions, snacks, neighbors – what could be better?
30 Delancey Street between Forsyth and Chrystie Streets inside Sara Roosevelt Park!
Could we reimagine this decrepit building and the container carton alongside it, with cars and trucks in the park 24/7 that now attracts traffic drive-throughs and misuse to the area, as a resiliency hub? a homeless services ‘urban hub’? local meeting space? a wild bird conservation center? indigenous plant center, youth center? with bathrooms that are maintained and serviced 24/7?
All of these? Your ideas?
Imagine the building with those window reglazed, the doors fixed, the brick repointed, a greenroof with solar panels? with back -up chargers available for the next Superstorm? with Wi-Fi available to the neighborhood and chairs and tables and plants in front to attract positive shared use?
Sign, Spanish, Mandarin, and Cantonese interpretation
Here are links to a number of articles on the Mayor’s announcement.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription)
We had 200 beds – that’s 200 ‘homes’ for elders and the disabled or those in need of skilled nursing care. We have elders in need for nursing home care – right now.
Bob Humber spoke at the Press Conference and said: “I spent many decades making this park safe and helping children here. I thought that when the time came and I needed help, when I could no longer work in the park, that I would still be able to look out and see my garden.”
We hold to our resolve: Return the Building to the public for its intended purpose, in perpetuity, as a health care facility.
If we can build luxury stadiums by moving poor people’s parks in the Bronx and middle class homes and small businesses in Brooklyn – we can fix this.
JULY 7, 2016 BY CASSIDY DAWN GRAVES
(photo: Cassidy Dawn Graves)
“On the northern side of Sara D. Roosevelt Park sits a large brick structure. Once a youth center, the Stanton Building was shut down during a time of high crime in the Lower East Side and is now used only for storage by the Parks Department. Since the late ’90s, there’s been talk of returning it to community use, but that has yet to happen…”
Read more at…
By Allegra Hobbs | July 6, 2016 5:18pm
“… Community members have launched a series of workshops aimed at convincing the city to turn a run-down storage facility into a community center with much-needed public restrooms — a cause advocates have been pushing for since 1994…”
The Stanton Building Task Force,…gathered outside the Parks Department building on Stanton Street to pass out surveys to park-goers in order to gather feedback on how best to revitalize the space, which the department has been using as a storage facility since the 1980s …
…[Webster said] ..community members care deeply about the park space and want very much to see its facilities open to the community.
But the department has shown no interest in moving forward with the community’s demand … a demand supported by Community Board 3 …”
Read the full article in DNAinfo
Many thanks to the Park-going community and nearby neighbors who came out to give us your thinking on what you’d like to see here! A number of adults who grew up playing checkers and ping pong inside the building and using the woodshop (that used to be in the basement) came by to tell us they hoped their children could use the building some day too.
And a big thank you to all the volunteers who showed up in force to help:
Charles Krezell, Max, and all the teenagers from LUNGs summer internship program who worked hard in the heat to clear tree pits, mulch, weed, clear trash and plant and water the Pachysandra as well as work in the side beds.
Thank you to Kirsti Bambridge and James Morris for guiding the volunteers in the planting and for getting tools, T-shirts and gloves for the young people.
Thank you to Parks and Parks Manager Terese Flores who brought us mulch, checked in with us, had the trucks and cars moved for the day, and made sure PEP was nearby (and 5th Precinct).
Thank you to our interns for their invaluable help posting flyers and making sure surveys got out to the neighborhood, and for documenting us: Chyna, Eddie, Tony, Lee and Noel. You were all superb.
Bob Humber from M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden (and the Elizabeth Hubbard Memorial Garden) helped organize and supervise and let us borrow tables and chairs!
Aziz Dehkan of Gardens Rising and the NY City Community Gardening Association came by too (he’ll be visiting Baltimore soon).
Josh offered Bike Repair with The New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op, Bee keepers came with fresh honey samples, the Zumba instructor came and the elders from University Settlement worked out (yes in this heat)!, The New Museum’s Annie Sultan stopped by to help and to distribute information on their exhibit “The Waiting Room” which has a series of “care sessions” (real hands-on care!) and brought the New Museum’s history of local artists, and Jina was on hand all day for sign language interpretation. Council Member Chin was represented as was Assembly Member Alice Cancel and Christopher Marte came by.
And 596 Acres brought their very informative exhibit “What Do We Do With Our Land”?
Wendy drew a lovely outline of the building so people could get a sense of the size of this space.
We had translations from Jin Xiu Chen and Kevin Tobar Pesantez and others…
Jennifer and Kevin and Katie and K did a lot of work too – and sweated….
University Settlement, Green Map System, and The Sara Roosevelt Park Community Coalition want to thank our partners at NYCommons for their help. And thank you to Susan Lerner who stopped by too!
Thanks to the press for coming out, seeing what we are doing, and letting others know!
Here are more photos of the day….
