Results tagged “park”

Artist and rabble rouser Robert Lederman sent us word that he was arrested this past Saturday afternoon on the 14th Street section of the High Line. He was issued 5 summonses, handcuffed and taken to the Precinct by Park Enforcement Patrol officers, after High Line staff called the NYPD.

Baseball season is done and over with, but Bronx residents are still waiting to go to the park. When the city approved the construction of the new Yankee Stadium, it allowed the ballclub to pave over 20.8 acres of parkland. In return, the city promised neighbors it would construct eight smaller greenspaces including public ballfields called Heritage Field as soon as the old Yankee Stadium was demolished. But "The House That Ruth Built" continues to stand, and Bronx residents still don't have much of that new parkland.

Raj Kottamasu, coordinator of the Freshkills Park Project, is driving towards reconditioning the 2,200-acre Fresh Kills Landfill into a fruitful and attractive city destination three times the size of Central Park. Kottamasu and his team strive to "get people into thinking about this site as a park" and less like a "symbol of environmental neglect and wastefulness." With construction already begun, Kottamasu hopes to open 70 of the 2,200 acres within the next two to three years. He adds, "There are a lot of landfills that have been converted into parks, historically and contemporarily. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens was the Corona ash dumps, which were referenced in 'The Great Gatsby.'"

The dog owners of the outer boroughs have oddly always seemed to have less outdoor space for their canines than those in Manhattan; or maybe they just speak up about it more. Either way, the Brooklyn Paper reports that dog owners of the South Slope "have commandeered a small park near the Prospect Expressway for a dog run" and are now angling to make it official.

Park(ing) Day is observed tomorrow in New York City and in other cities around the world. The international holiday, which turns boring old asphalt parking spaces into whimsical urban oases, was started back in 2005 by Transportation Alternatives and Rebar, a San Francisco-based art and design collective. It became an annual event, and every year the curbside creations have gotten more elaborate and inspired. Last year saw parking spaces transformed into such curiosities as a meditation garden, a geodesic dome, and an urban arbor.

First they came for the smokers in bars and restaurants, and we said nothing—we simply enjoyed breathing air without carcinogens. Now the Mayor is coming for the smokers on park benches and beach towels, and we're still saying nothing! As part of an ambitious new public health initiative, city health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley announced that the Bloomberg administration would seek to ban smoking in all city parks and beaches. Public health advocates like Dr. David A. Kessler are elated; he tells City Room, "The issues with secondhand smoke are very real and the majority of the population today doesn’t want to be breathing in tobacco smoke, whether indoors or outdoors." Farley says the proposal to proscribe cigs may require the approval of the City Council, and health department spokeswoman Jessica Scaperotti tells Bloomberg News that officials haven’t yet devised "a specific strategy for reducing smoking in parks." But if cops can be as militant about busting smokers as they are ticketing people for public drinking, we're sure this'll be a big cash crop for the city.

The Parks Department has been letting a concessionaire charge drivers $18 per car to park on grassy playing fields in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and some people in Queens are mad. Well, one person, at least; a park advocate named Greg Godfrey. He's outraged that the parkland is being gobbled up by cars on days when the U.S. Open overlaps with Mets games, which will happen for the last time tonight when the Mets play the Marlins at Citifield, adjacent to the tennis center. So taxpayers who use the park for cricket and soccer have been relegated to dusty fields, and Godfrey gripes to the Daily News, "When you constantly compress open space and green space, you're reducing the oxygen in the fields and that's where you're losing grass growth." Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski calmly responds that, "You need to give and take, and we all make room for each other," and promises that the USTA reseeds the parking areas. But Godfrey won't be satisfied until somebody builds a multi-level parking deck for sports fans, which Lewandowski acknowledges as a nice idea, it's just that paying for it is "a stumbling block."

Lifeguards, sharks, outlaw swimmers... are there any other beach stories one can squeeze out of summer? Yep! The Daily News has published a piece about sand scavengers! One of their reporters recently rented a metal detector and searched for treasure on Coney Island. The rental alone costs $37.95 a day plus $25 for a sifter, and the employee at the rental company told her that she'd likely only find nickels and crushed cans! Indeed, she only dug up $2.07 in beach booty—so much for that bailout (pailout?).

            

If you've been to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade or Brooklyn Landing recently, you've probably noticed lots of work going on at the Brooklyn Bridge Park site. We were curious about what's been happening, and asked the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation to give us a tour of the current site. While things are still very much under construction now, they told us that parts of the park will open as early as the end of this year.

Last year the Bloomberg administration made a big deal about reducing the number of parking placards issued to city employees, slashing them by over 25,000. At the time, the cutback on permits, which allow cops, civil servants, and other lucky bureaucrats to park almost anywhere, was heralded by Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives as “a good first step. But the final analysis will be weeks and months from now, when we see how actively these plaques are enforced."

       

Gantry Plaza State Park: you had us at hammocks. Seriously, the people in charge of the Williamsburg waterfront park need to take a cue from the Queens West waterfront, which Curbed reports took a big step today from "casually-accepted planned community to, dare we say, desired urban oasis." Alongside the aforementioned hammocks are lounge chairs, a promenade, the Pepsi sign, and sweet lush green grass. Now if only the fireworks were on the East River this year, we'd suggest staking a spot out now.

              

If you haven't explored the newly-opened section of the High Line park yet, then let Katie Sokoler's stunning photographs take you there. She stopped by last night and tells us they started "shooing everyone away" at 9:45 p.m., so keep that in mind. The first section runs from Gansevoort Street, in the Meatpacking District, to West 20th Street, in Chelsea, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues; here are details about the access points.

                     

Here are some of our readers lovely photographs of the new openly High Line park in the Meatpacking District. And it looks like the public aren't the only ones enjoying it—here are a handful of reviews that note the gorgeous views from 30 feet above ground, the lovely plantings, and the vision and determination of the designers.

                     

Looks like the High Line opened to the public one day ahead of schedule! This park really knows how to keep us guessing. We headed over there earlier today, and will be updating with more photos soon—but why not go have a look for yourself?

You know how the Queens Museum of Art was offering up miniature real estate on their panorama? It's pretty much the only place you can put your name on a landmark or apartment for such a low price. Well, now for some more coin you can put your name on the life-size versions of things! The NY Post reports that if you have $5 million to spare, your name could grace Central Park's tennis center, and for around $2 million you could sponsor the Chelsea Recreation Center. Times are tough, so any name will do! The list of available locations that will gladly accept your cash and take on your name include the restored pool in Williamsburg's McCarren Park (maybe Vice or American Apparel has $3 million for this one); "the track and field house proposed for Ocean Breeze Park on Staten Island ($2 million); and the sports facility being built at Mill Pond Park near Yankee Stadium in The Bronx ($2 million)." Since there is no advertising allowed in parks, the cash will get the donor a plaque, perhaps with a corporate logo. Are we that far away from walking across the Brooklyn Bridge presented by Verizon Wireless?

Back in April there were some updates on the preservation efforts of the 151-year-old smallpox hospital on Roosevelt Island, and word is that, as of yesterday, it's been saved from total destruction. However, NY1 reports that Trust for Public Land's Andy Stone "said the restoration process is painstaking and delicate, since every piece that fell down had to catalogued, and there are hundreds of pieces still waiting to be reattached." amNewYork also reports on the city’s only landmarked ruin, noting that aside from those finishing touches, it has "finished a $4.5 million stabilization after a portion collapsed in December 2007." Now that the structure is sturdy once again, ground was broken yesterday for the construction of Southpoint Park, which will encompass both the ruins and the Strecker Lab and will include "two large lawns, a scenic overlook and gardens along the southernmost part of the island." Look forward to frolicking there around Fall 2010.

Picture Kevin Bacon in a black suit, white v-neck tee underneath, walking in slow motion down an overgrown High Line. It just seems fitting, doesn't it? That must be what the folks at Sundance thought, too, because here is that exact scene as part of the channel's High Line Stories series (which is online only and premiered today).

       

We can't resist—here are more photographs of the newly re-opened Washington Square Park. (Yesterday really was a marvelous day to enjoy it!)

After what seems like ages of renovations, Washington Square Park is back to its glorious self with fountain turned on and parkgoers enjoying the lack of construction material in the way. A tipster told Curbed, which has more photographs, "It's all very pretty, and clean -- but it looks like the local dogs will take care of that pronto. Nothing like days of yore (yet). Neither a guitar nor blunt in sight."

Last winter River Cafe owner Michael “Buzzy” O’Keeffe sent out a letter to the media predicting that the under-construction Brooklyn Bridge Park would be a nightmare for his riverside establishment. O'Keefe feared his little park beside the River Cafe would be damaged because plans for Brooklyn Bridge Park call for a pathway through his grounds, connecting the state- and city-owned portions of the park. According to the Brooklyn Paper, O'Keefe maintains the park as part of his $1,667 per month lease with the city, and he worries—whaaa? $1, 667 a month!? That's less than what most New Yorkers pay for their shabby apartments, and the majority of us can't sell $125 six-course tasting menus to cover our rent. Brooklyn Paper has more on O'Keeffe's park panic, which he says was sparked because "when you’re dealing with municipalities, sometimes they’re unreasonable." Yeah... after reading about his sweetheart long-term lease, we've no choice but to start calling this place the Cry Me a River Cafe.

According to a spiked Times article obtained by New York Shitty, a quiet little Greenpoint waterfront park (okay, it faces Newtown Creek, so we're not sure how much of that front is technically facing "water") was "substantially completed" back in 2007, and yet it's still closed to the public. Before the city started renovating it as a sweetener to the 2005 "condos galore" rezoning plan, this spot at the northernmost tip of Manhattan Avenue was just a humble little dock where locals would go "to fish, to boat, to lunch," according to Christine Holowacz at the Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks & Planning. But nobody's been able to use it for years, even though to the untrained eye it looks pretty much complete, with new benches and a kayak launch. The problem is that a railing built to keep residents from falling into the creek and mutating into toxic avengers wasn't up to code, and, well, good parks take time! But now one city official tells the Brooklyn Paper that locals will at last get their park back during the spring: "We apologize. We understand the frustration. But it will just be a little longer."

Is Brooklyn's McCarren Park scary? A discussion has been started up on the topic over at Street Easy, and while the area isn't like it used to be, some in the thread are wondering if it's "dangerous, or only like Central Park is scary to non-city-dwellers." One commenter sections the park off into three parts, and further separates it into areas reserved for the Polish, the Mexicans and the Hipsters. The area closest to the condos is deemed the safest and calmest, boasting an "excellent running track, handball and bocce courts." The biggest concern amongst the potential condo-buyers in the thread seems to be The Hipsters (the baseball field is "overrun by hipsters playing kickball"), but as one points out, the renovated pool will host "classical and opera concerts, [which is] a good sign that hipster influence is waning here." Though we hear the hipsters are getting way into Le Sacre du printemps' complex rhythmic structures as of late. [via Curbed]

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Though most of the neighborhood around the Gowanus Canal has not yet been rezoned for residential construction, one development company has just won approval for a big condo project with buildings up to 12 stories high and a public park along the canal. Blogger Pardon Me For Asking sat through a "long and drawn out" Landmark/Land Use committee meeting last night (so we didn't have to). She calls the near-unanimous vote "a sad outcome for the community":

Let me just say that no amount of testimony from concerned residents at last month's meeting, no concerns about pathogens in the waters of the canal, nor warnings that the land is in a flood zone were able to sway a majority of our board members from voting yes for Toll's spot rezoning.

The development company that's pushing for a special rezoning approval to construct several residential buildings by the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn came under fire at a Neighborhood Association meeting in Carrol Gardens last night, with two local architects dismissing the project renderings as deceptive. Chris McVoy and John Hatheway maintained that the developer, Toll Brothers, has provided renderings that make their tallest building—which would be 12 stories and 125 feet high—look more like 85 feet.

       

Hope you finished all you last-minute Park(ing) Day shopping, because the last thing you want is to be rushing around buying gifts on Park(ing) Day proper—especially since there are fewer places to park. For the uninitiated, Park(ing) Day is an international celebration of transformed parking spaces, a time for families and friends to gather together on a temporary patch of grass laid out on the street, while trying hard not to think about all the traffic plowing by just inches away. New York City has over 50 creative little park(ing) spots this year, making 2008 the best Park(ing) Day ever! God Bless us, every one. (Even car owners.) But once 6 p.m. comes, all these urban oases get handed back over to the drivers, so get out there and enjoy it. Details on all locations here.

         

More than 100,000 people have taken the free ferry over to Governors Island so far this year, up from 56,000 in 2007 and 26,000 in 2006. Today the Times takes a look at the 172-acre island's new-found popularity among everyone from crowd-surfing punks to exuberant swing dancers. If only those groups could one day share the same dance floor!

      

Yesterday we noted that the Highbridge Park path was unveiled after undergoing a $4.2 million makeover. The High Bridge, which the has been closed for around 30 years, will undergo a $60 million renovation and will reopen as a pedestrian bridge. The bridge connects Manhattan and the Bronx and is located at 174th and Amsterdam Ave in Highbridge Park in Manhattan and at West 170th, University Avenue & Highbridge in the Bronx. Besides the access trail from 165th and Edgecombe Avenue, the a staircase leading to the High Bridge Water Tower was also restored.