Brooklyn Paper: Residents sue city again for Fort Greene Park revamp

From Friends of Fort Greene Park

“The Parks Department misrepresented the health of the 58 mature trees marked for removal — a total of 71 trees will be endangered, including an additional 13 due to extreme pruning and adjacent excavation under their Parks Without Borders redesign plan. “

Take Action Now to Save 58 Mature Trees in Fort Greene Park

“We welcome an influx of money that would preserve, restore and enhance current and historic park features. NYC Parks are supposed to be stewards of these publicly owned spaces and residents expect them to implement community input and maintain the character of our neighborhood park.”

“Fort Greene residents say NO to Parks Without Borders redesign of the Park; NO to cutting down healthy trees and eliminating shade; NO to dismantling historic features; NO to concrete instead of green.”

From Children’s Magical Garden:

From CityLab

By Rick Stachura

“A proposed luxury development in Manhattan has highlighted the murky status of Jointly Owned Playgrounds. Are they people’s parks or possible development sites?”

The possibilities, if JOPs can be development sites

If JOPs were suddenly imbued with development rights, what would happen? In September 2018, Elizabeth Goldstein, President of the Municipal Art Society, told a hearing of the City Council Committee on Parks and Recreation that the impact would be unprecedented: “If [all the] JOPs across the city of New York were to have air rights today—if by some wave of the magic wand they were to have development rights—they would represent between 20 and 40 million square feet of development rights that aren’t currently on the books, which is the equivalent of 10 Empire State Buildings.”

From Gothamist  illustrations by Clarisa Diaz, WNYC/Gothamist. Source: NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation & NY State Dept. of Health

From BoweryBoogie:

“Cops are in pursuit of a man who they say sexually assaulted a woman in her Lower East Side apartment last week.”

“See site for photo of alleged perp

“Authorities describe the perp as 5 foot-8, weighing about 150 lbs., and last seen wearing a black Adidas sweatshirt. Police released surveillance footage to the public for assistance in identifying him.”

Go to site to see photo.

From Birdlink:

The full scale BIRDLINK  will be installed in 2019 at Sara D. Roosevelt Park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in readiness for the seasonal migrations on the Atlantic Flyway that pass through New York City. Enlivening a plaza in Sara Roosevelt Park, the site is located in a busy, economically and culturally diverse neighborhood that also hosts the African M’Finda Kalunda Garden and the Chinese Hua Mei Bird Garden for exotic caged songbirds.  BIRDLINK attracts wild birds that reside or migrate through the city and touch down in this park with native plants that support them. It responds and expands upon community interests, and highlights the shared the urban ecosystem. Birds appeal to diverse individuals and bridge cultural differences. Dialogue is created when a community’s perception of a seemingly derelict place is replaced by an installation that activates that space.

Collaborative Partners

New York State Parks,  New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, New York City Audubon Society, Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition, BioBusGreenbelt, Native Plant Center : NYC Parks Audubon, New York For the Birds,  University Settlement Adult Literacy Program, The Lower East Side Partnership, Bronx Children’s Museum

Consultants

The New York City Department of Parks and RecreationStaten Island Greenbelt Native Plant NurseryNew York State Parks Recreation and Historic PreservationDonald Sussman Landscape ConsultantRobert Silman Associates Structural Engineers, DPCSalvatore Coscenza  Design ConsultantKiwi Nguyen Design ConsultantMarie Salembier Horticulture Consultant

Funders

The New York State Connect Kids to Parks initiative, a program of the Environmental Protection FundColeman and Susan Burke Center for Native PlantsThe Durst OrganizationThe City Parks FoundationNew York City Audubon SocietyAnovaHunter Industriesioby.org

For other postings on SDR Coalition site about BirdLink here and here (with more photos).

Neighbors to Save Rivington House at CB3 Health Committee on April 4^th  6:30pm 

Location: “The Lee” 133 Pitt Street at Houston Street 

“Mount Sinai has signed a 30 year lease on Rivington House. While N2SaveRH is pleased to have the building’s resources go towards a more public purpose, we also note that not a single bed will be devoted to local community elders who built this place and for whom this fight was waged.

Neighbors to Save Rivington House (with expertise on hospital mergers, public healthcare, reimagined nursing home care, continuums of care, architecture, former Rivington House employees, etc) will present some of what we’ve learned in this 3 ½ years on a number of issues at this coming CB3 Health Committee on April 4^th 6:30pm 

The unanswered issues:

There is still no provision being made in Rivington House for those in desperate need of a local nursing home bed on the continuum of care for elders who built this community.

There is no vision or plan for how we intend to tackle the Public Health crisis of Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

There is no plan in place to create anything here (or anywhere?) for people of little (or middle class) means who are in this predicament. 

There is no NY State overhaul of the nursing home industry, so we can continue to expect lousy inhumane care for vulnerable people while profiteering nursing home providers make money.

And…we know little about Mount Sinai as a community partner. 

In the end, whether this became luxury condos or a ‘behavioral health’ center it would mean exactly the same outcome for the people we fought for:

Nothing.

Neighbors to Save Rivington House”

Facebook

Twitter: @Nabe2SaveRH 

#CareNotCondos #RivingtonHouse

Petition 

Petition Call the Meeting

From AM NY:

By Jefferson Siegel

The indefatigable Wendy Brawer:

““We’ve been listening, watching and creating examples that help people find their own pathway through the process of making a map,” said Green Map founder Wendy Brawer.”

“Green Map is a locally led, globally linked movement mapping local nature, culture and green living places in communities around the world,”

“The trees, the community gardens and parks make us happy and healthier. They reduce stormwater on rainy days and increase our comfort and sense of well-being on hot days,” Brawer said.

Brawer cites one example of proverbial mountain-moving: Her “Are We Trashing the Apple?” map from 2000 revealed 48 acres of waterfront that would have been converted to waste transfer stations.

“In 1999 people learned about a plan to site garbage transfer facilities in Red Hook, Williamsburg and the South Bronx, which would have meant countless trips a day of garbage trucks into low-income communities of color on the waterfront. Mapping and community outrage stopped the plan and saved air quality in those neighborhoods,” she said.

“After Sandy, Green Map created three maps; in English, Spanish and Mandarin, showing different resources for disaster preparedness and environmental resiliency. Those were aimed to empower people and prepare them if a disaster ever happened again,” Reiss said.

Elissa Sampson created an interactive Garden Green Map of community gardens in 2009.

“When the gardens got attacked in the ‘90s because of gentrification and because of the value of the land they were on, people started defending the gardens because they understood the gardens saved the neighborhood…They were cultural and green resources for urban dwellers. I wanted to be able to explain visually where these gardens were, and why they were important.”

City Comptroller Scott Stringer tweeted, “Imagine if, instead of tearing down parks to build highways, we flipped the script and replaced highways with beautiful public parks?

Brawer remains tireless in her efforts to make every day Earth Day. She points to the 5,000 street trees in her downtown neighborhood that provide carbon dioxide reduction, stormwater capture and pollutants removal. She is also rallying against a plan to bury East River Park under 8 to 10 feet of soil, a drastic change from an original plan to save the park and adjoining neighborhoods from flooding.”

Council Members Brad Lander, Margaret Chin

Where: City Hall Steps

They worked to get the plastic bag consumption under City law. Now NY State has backed them up.