May is Lower East Side History Month!

Lower East Side History Month was founded ten years ago by local groups in the hope that a collective celebration of our stories and peoples would strengthen our sense of community.

Honoring the history of this community together is one element in working collaboratively to sustain an inclusive LES – despite waves of change and displacement… Read more at link above…

Powerful information and thinking from the Council Member and questions from Adam Ganser and Others from NY4Parks.

Saturday, May 13

Sara Roosevelt Park: at Broome and Chrystie

The unstoppable Sokie Lee and Ken and their Clean UP NYC volunteers!

11am to 12:30pm

Meet at Broome and Chrystie Streets

nyccleanvol@gmail.com

(on Facebook  NYC CLEAN Volunteers NYCCleanvolunteers)

Grand Street The American International Dragon and Lion 12pm-3pm Chrystie /Grand

Chinese Freemasons Athletic Club

Rain date May 14^th

Turtle Release!

Chicken Coop Expansion

Clean UP! With IMPD organizer Anna and her crew!

Tree Bed Expansion and Mulching for Sara Roosevelt Park Trees!

Girl with Snail

FABnyc’s Hero Awards !!

K Webster was so proud to be among these heroes and to be nominated by Debra Jeffreys-Glass!!!

Here is K’s talk:

I like these awards. I like honoring local people – each offering a version of not giving up, of how they figured out to stand with others. Stepping in, even if they can’t always win, they’re still willing to try.

Like Debra – who fights for the right to an educational system that everyone could trust in.

Like Ryan – who knows that art and artists are essential, and creates possibilities.

Like Kim Fong who built a diverse and compassionate staff to care for her seniors.

Like my brother Paul, who intervened when racism or sexism played out on the construction site.

Like my mom who after my dad’s heart attack went to work nights taking an hour-long bus ride to a production-line job with men who didn’t want her there, but because she decided to win them over – they became her fiercest allies.

Like Sgt Prado from our community policing unit who tried desperately to save a young women’s life, but couldn’t, and didn’t try to hide his grief.

Like Marvin and other young men that Bob Humber ‘takes under his wing’ who have no housing, but have a home with him. Each choosing the other.

Like my ‘now’ family: all brilliant, good men: Steve, Lee, and Adam.

Like my friend and comrade Azi Khalili whose bravery, smarts and love extend over a large part of the world, literally saving lives.

Like all of us who try, in Alice Walker’s words, to add our own ‘small stones to the pile’.

Like anyone who dares to get up again after all the ‘tries’ that didn’t work.

I try not to second-guess how we’ve survive our lives, but also try not to assume that any survival strategy determines our lives forever. And to remember that oppressive systems pit everyone against everyone on every possible difference. But that we don’t have to accept that.

To me, a hero is someone who understand that sometimes the bravest thing we can do is to show vulnerability or listen or wait or risk a mistake. And sometimes these are the only things that save lives in a tough, but very beautiful, vast world filled with all the rest of us, heroes all, who are trying too.

Thank you. And “your welcome”.

K

This area is slated for an upgrade.

As many sections of the park were slowly improved (Hester Playground 2006), this section remained the last area of disuse and therefore invited misuse.

Now, thanks to our local elected representatives Past and Present, CM Chin, CM Marte, Governor Hochul, State Senator Kavanagh, The Hua Mei Birders, This Coalition, Alliance, a concerned business community and all our local residents who’ve tended this section for decades when everyone else had abandoned it…

and a special thank you to Manhattan Commissioner Perez for immediately taking measures to make this area safer with bright lighting on the Broome Street Parkhouse, taking down fencing that gave the area a derelict look, working with the 5th Pct to have a trial lat night closure,

AND…for guiding this complex process.

Hoping for solid infrastructure improvements: ADA accessible entryways and pathways,  water source outlets, The Pit drainage repair, widening gardens,

asking all our neighbors to weigh in…

And workshops and outreach to prevent displacement….

and yes…please end the use this narrow park for a parking lot!! We take public transportation!!