from LESReady: Citizen Preparedness Training

LESReady:

The Citizen Preparedness Training is scheduled for September 17th at 6:00 PM at PS. 15. Please distribute the information to your constituents this will be a SPANISH SPEAKING TRAINING WITH A FREE TO GO BAG at the end.

(There are only 107 registered, there is space for 300 )

LESReady:

We would love for you to join us on Monday, September 15th at 10:00 AM at Nazareth Housing located at 137 E. 2nd Street (it’s a white school building) between Avenue A and 1st. (Closer to avenue A) in the Lower Level.

Coffee & food will be provided….

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Vanishing New York: Jeremiah Moss writes about Hua Mei Birds

From Vanishing New York:

Hua Mei Bird Garden

“Recently, for the first time, I came upon the Hua Mei Bird Garden in Sara D. Roosevelt Park on the Lower East Side at Chinatown’s edge. The garden has been around officially since 1995, but you’ll miss it, too, unless you’re up and walking in the early morning.”

“Stumbling upon the scene is a bit surreal. It reminds you that surprises can still happen in New York City, where so much surprise is vanishing. ”

 

photo: Lee Elson

Read MoreVanishing New York: Jeremiah Moss writes about Hua Mei Birds
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Senator Squadron and equity in our Park System

From Senator Daniel Squadron met with Parks groups at the BRC. Here is his follow up note (we’ve posted his City Council Testimony elsewhere on this site):

Thank you for joining our #ParksEquity forum on Wednesday evening. The conversation was substantive and important. Our shared values will continue to inform my conversations with the City to address the parks equity crisis. It was an impressive, committed, and diverse group. There were representatives from parks, large and small, in each of the five boroughs, but there were a lot of shared themes:

  • There is a need for greater consistency, and a need-based system, in allocating dollars to our parks.
  • The parks system must be unified and treated as a single network. Every park, including the largest conservancies, has an obligation to the entire system, in terms of expertise, education, and dollars.
  • The political voice of neighborhood parks, large and small, must be a more valued component in parks equity discussions, and parks issues overall.

In addition, a number of you asked that I share the values/goals that were discussed at the January meeting. At that time, a group including the largest conservancies and the citywide advocates proposed that these five items should frame any solution to the equity crisis facing our parks.

  1. All neighborhoods deserve good parks; nicer parks cannot be reserved for wealthier neighborhoods.
  2. There needs to be a stronger, more urgent push for increased funding to operate parks.
  3. Outside support should be augmented and better distributed.
  4. Community engagement strategies and best practices should be shared.
  5. The parks system, as a single unified network, should be strengthened.

I’ve also included testimony (attached) that I gave at two City Council hearings this spring.

 

We’ll be in touch soon on next steps. In the interim, please don’t hesitate to contact me with your thoughts or questions.

 

Thank you again,

Daniel

 

Daniel Squadron

NY State Senator

26th District

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Publication Launch Event: How Can I Improve My Park? This Thursday!!

How Can I Improve My Park?

Publication Launch Event: How Can I Improve My Park?

Thursday, July 24, 2014, 6:30pm-8:30pm
At The Arsenal in Central Park

Register online today because we have almost reached capacity. This event will fill up!

Attend this launch event to be among the first to receive a newly illustrated step-by-step guide to getting involved in your park.  Download the poster here.

Featured speakers:

Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, NYC Parks
Sabina Saragoussi, Director of Partnerships for Parks
Tupper Thomas, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Parks
Valeria Mogilevich, Deputy Director of The Center for Urban Pedagogy

The event features a panel discussion on the topic, “How can citizens partner with government to improve our parks?”

Moderator:

Alison Tocci, President of City Parks Foundation

Panelists:

First Deputy Commissioner Liam Kavanagh, NYC Parks
Councilmember Mark Levine, Chair of the Committee on Parks and Recreation, The New York City Council
Fay D. Hill, Volunteers for Springfield Park, Queens
Brad Taylor, Friends of Morningside Park, Manhattan

How Can I Improve My Park? is part of the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s Making Policy Public program. This publication is a collaboration of The Center for Urban Pedagogy, New Yorkers for Parks, Partnerships for Parks, designer Elana Schlenker and illustrator Leslie Wood.

Partnerships Academy is a training program of Partnerships for Parks that supports community-based park groups and individual volunteers to achieve success.  Partnerships for Parks is a joint program of NYC Parks and the City Parks Foundation that helps New Yorkers work together to make neighborhood parks thrive.

 

Read MorePublication Launch Event: How Can I Improve My Park? This Thursday!!
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Help NYC’s food businesses compost with local community sites!

Citizen’s for NYC sent out:

Allow NYC’s food businesses to give their scraps to community compost sites, that help build neighborhoods through support for locally grown food and other green projects.

Dear Friend,

Citizens Committee believes New York City Council should consider allowing local restaurants and food businesses to prove their commitment to environmental stewardship, neighborhoods and customers by allowing them to give a portion of their food scraps to community compost sites rather than have them carted away to other states that are far away from the city.

You already give your dollars to local restaurants, coffee places and other food-related businesses; now ask them to support your community!  Use your consumer power to help add local food businesses to the growing community composting movement.

Here’s how:

1. Please direct the owners of your favorite restaurants to this petition that helps NYC’s food businesses compost with local community sites!

2. Print out the FIRST page of the petition and take it with you the next time you buy coffee or food or a meal and ask the seller to go online and sign.  Follow up with an email reminder, and send emails to businesses like your coffee shop, local beer maker and chocolate maker.

Please remind your to identify the name of the business when they sign so we can give them credit.  I’m happy to report that superstar chef Mario Batali’s restaurant group got on the right side of the issue, with their name now on the petition.

Let our communities keep the benefits of organics recycling in and for the community.  Let’s not have those millions of tons of food scraps continue to be hauled out to destinations way outside city limits.

Sincerely,

Peter Kostmayer

CEO

Citizens Committee for New York City

 

Read MoreHelp NYC’s food businesses compost with local community sites!
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Claire Weiss sculpture in Sara Roosevelt Park (BoweryBoogie reports)

“…Faux geological deposits are likely on the way to the head of Sara D. Roosevelt Park. A new public art proposal called “Uplift” would have two replica tectonic plates installed at the top of the Houston-facing steps…”

Community Board 3 will weigh in on the matter at its Parks subcommittee meeting on July 10.

Read MoreClaire Weiss sculpture in Sara Roosevelt Park (BoweryBoogie reports)
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CitiBike at Rivington and Chrystie

CitiBike interviewed a few people including an MKGardener…

Station Stakeout: Rivington and Chrystie

“The Lower East Side has long been home to vibrant and unique people and places, and now it’s also home to a large number of Citi Bike’s ubiquitous blue bikes! With stations dotted across the area, from the Bowery to the East River, residents and tourists alike can be found pedaling through the lively streets of the LES. We headed out to the Rivington St & Chrystie St station to see who we’d meet…”

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Dedication of The Elizabeth Hubbard Memorial Garden & Juneteenth!!

The Elizabeth Hubbard Memorial Garden

Elizabeth’s dancing feet took her from her hometown’s Dance Theater of Harlem – to the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall – and to Ballet Hispanico. Along the way she danced herself into the waiting arms of her beloved husband Joe.

Later in life, her feet paused as she taught young ballerinas at Marie Wildey School of Dance. She also became the respected Co-Chair of the M’Finda Kalunga Garden and co-founder of the Roosevelt Park Community Coalition. And in this Park and Garden you would find those dancing feet walking her cherished Roo.

While we pay tribute to Elizabeth’s memory we also commit this garden to the sightless and seeing impaired in our community. We intend it to be a garden that will be truly accessible to everyone. Whether by touch or by scent or by sight: a welcoming oasis to everyone.

It is being created in the spirit that Elizabeth guided us with: she was soft-spoken but fierce in the face of wrong, she had unshakable integrity, frankness, humor, thoughtfulness, generosity and grit.

And it will take a lot of grit. It will need the care and advice of those who it seeks to serve, the sightless and their allies, as well as the steady labor of the already dedicated team of volunteers.

We dedicate The Elizabeth Hubbard Memorial Garden with love in her honor.

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Beautiful day today.

Today we dedicated the front Garden to Elizabeth Hubbard. We thank everyone who came out to celebrate and honor her.

Afterwards we had a lovely Juneteenth organized and led by our very own Debra Glass. We had readings and Maya Angelou poetry and a history lesson.

We had guests from the LightHouse and VISIONS (Thank you Lee Brozgold).

We thank Gigi Li, Chair of CB3, for dedicating Elizabeth’s Memorial Garden and Bob Humber (Elizabeth Hubbard Memorial Garden Coordinator) and Kim Fong (Executive Director of the BRC Senior Center) for accepting the plaque that Parks Department generously created.

Terese Flores (Park Manager), Ismael Rivera, Helen Yanolatos, Steve Simon, Geraldine Riddick, and Commissioner Castro.

Bob Humber’s crew: James, Kate, Jose, Lanzo, Carol, Jenifer, Jin Xiu and AAFE volunteers, Citizen’s for NYC and their volunteers.

AND Ted Glass for all manner of help: Signage, Website….etc.

Read MoreDedication of The Elizabeth Hubbard Memorial Garden & Juneteenth!!
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