Tag Archive | "Parks"

Morris Heights Residents Voice Concerns About Noise and Pollution as City Plans to Renovate Jennie Jerome Playground

Jennie Jerome Playground. New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

Community members in Morris Heights are asking the city to address noise and pollution as it begins the process of renovating the Jennie Jerome Playground. The park, located on Jerome Ave. near the Bronx Expressway, is getting a $4 million dollar facelift. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation held a scope meeting Wednesday, to discuss the  redevelopment.

“I don’t think there’s a way to mitigate the noise pollution from the (four) train because it’s elevated above the park and we’re just kind of used to that,” local education organizer Chauncy Young said. “It really is in a lot of ways, you know, a very small public park so you have to have something to draw people in.”

The decision to renovate Jennie Jerome Playground was announced in July, one of 10 new sites to be renovated as part of the Community Parks Initiative to renovate neighborhood parks that were hit hardest by the pandemic. A total of $425 million was allocated for the initiative, according to Peng Xu, landscape designer for the project. 

Many community members expressed their concerns at the meeting about noise and pollution in the playground, suggesting that the renovation add unique features to the park to mitigate pollution.

They also cited safety concerns regarding the traffic and transportation around the playground. Suggestions included moving the entrance to the park from Jerome Ave nearer to Townsend Ave and installing a traffic light.

“A lot of our children actually don’t go to this park, not only the highway pollution, the noise pollution, but there’s also a safety concern that our children are not the only ones that are in this park,” said Gladys Gomez, Parents Association president for school district PS 170. “This is a park that’s so near to the highway and there’s a stop sign rather than a traffic light on one of the crossways.”

Samantha Cardenas, chief of staff for city councilmember Pierina Ana Sanchez, indicated that Sanchez’s office was open to the idea of the entrance being moved. She added that Sanchez’s office would facilitate conversations with the Department of Transportation to install a traffic light.

“This is unfortunately one of the few parks we have and it is very very sadly stationed right above the Cross Bronx and next to the train,” Cardenas said. “However we can mitigate those would be ideal.”

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City Council Members Want Trump Golf Course License Cancelled

Parks and Recreation Committee listens to testimony at a sparsely attended hearing. Tate Hewitt for The Bronx Ink.

City council members are calling on the parks department to cancel a contract it holds with Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, a golf course in Throggs Neck.

Parks and Recreation Committee Chair Shekar Krishnan and Councilperson Marjorie Velázquez were joined last Thursday by members of 9/11 Justice, an advocacy group for victims and families of September 11th, in an attempt to prevent The Aramco Team Series, a Saudi Arabian funded golf tournament, from being held in October on Trump’s golf course. 

Citing FBI operation Encore as evidence that Saudi Arabia was linked to the terrorist attack, 9/11 Justice was asking the city to intervene by pulling the license of Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point.

“Our federal bureau of investigation has identified 12 Saudi government officials who were directly responsible for assisting the 9/11 hijackers. One of those Saudi government officials was working for the Saudi intelligence agency,” said Brett Eagleson, president of 9/11 Justice, “For the City of New York to ignore this point…is a travesty,” adding “it’s like salt on an open wound.”

The contract can be canceled at parks commissioner Sue Donoghue’s sole discretion, but her employer – the mayor- may also dismiss her at will. Neither Donoghue, nor any representatives from the parks department, attended the special parks committee hearing last week to review Ferry Point Park LLC’s license to operate a public golf course. Mayor Eric Adams and his administration was also absent from the hearing.

Krishnan said the council was informed late Wednesday night that representatives from either office would not be in attendance. “No reason was given,” according to Krishnan.

“Not one minute away from this chamber…this administration could not send a single person to explain to New Yorkers why City Hall has handed over a public park to Donald Trump and his criminal enterprise,” said Krishnan. The license dates back to February 21st, 2012, predating much of the controversy surrounding former President Trump.

The Bronx Ink reached out to the Mayor’s office for comment on their absence. They responded with a statement from Communications Director Max Young, “Because of ongoing litigation risk, the administration has been advised against appearing at this hastily called hearing and will instead be submitting written testimony.” 

The statement from the mayor’s office was sympathetic to the “desired outcome to cancel both this tournament and the overarching license agreement” but argued that the price of breaking the contract would be “up to tens of millions of dollars.”

The Aramco Team Series is a women’s golf tournament that is a new addition to the Ladies European Tour. It constitutes an initial Saudi Arabian investment into the golf world, but has recently been overshadowed by their second initiative, LIV Golf, a men’s tour which has controversially pulled athletes away from the PGA tour with large sums of money. This would be the first year in which a leg of the tournament would be hosted in New York City.

A document addressed to the Committee from Park Commissioner Donoghue states that her office shares the sentiment that the Aramaco Tournament is “disappointing” and also pointed to financial risks. “Given the City’s budget situation, termination at will – as you are suggesting – would be irresponsible at this time. It would embroil the City in litigation and require a termination payment…that Trump Ferry has claimed could amount to $30 million.” 

Donoghue’s statement disputed points of the hearing’s testimony by questioning the city’s legal standing for breaking the contract, and whether any “misuse” of the contract has occurred.

This contrasted the committee testimony of Stephen Younger, a past president of the New York State Bar Association. He spoke on the legality of terminating the license, informing the committee that Donoghue may pull the license as long as her reasoning is neither arbitrary nor capricious.

Younger noted the recent guilty plea of Allan Weisselberg, a Trump organization leader in whose name Trump Ferry Point LLC is held, as well as the recent withdrawal of support by Mezars USA (the accounting firm that certified Trump’s now disputed net worth as sole guarantor for the park license), as reasonable grounds for termination of the license. 

Krishnan asked Younger about the divorce fee of 30 million dollars that had been stated by a spokesperson for the mayor, after an earlier attempt to cancel the tournament. Younger said that the cost would likely be between $5 million and $10 million.

“The same price of building a bathroom in a city park,”  Krishnan said.

The higher figure of $30 million was originally stated by Eric Trump– apparently not fact-checked by the Mayor’s office, according to Krishnan. 

The sole dissent on the committee was David Carr (R), who objected that the committee was not interested in management of the Parks many golf courses, but was instead “motivated by one thought: orange man bad.”

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Cancer diagnosis threatens future of Bronx bird sanctuary

Troy Lancaster, 69, inspects some weeds that have taken over a gravel path that runs through Dred Scott Bird Sanctuary in Mount Eden.

As Troy Lancaster opened a gate to the Dred Scott Bird Sanctuary in Mount Eden, he bent down to pick at some weeds that had begun taking over the gravel path that cuts through this oasis in the south Bronx. Though it feels like a lifetime ago, he said, the city-owned lot used to be a dumping ground for junk and snow from the rest of the city—and he’s worried it’s headed there again.

Lancaster, the man who built Dred Scott from the ground up 22 years ago and has spent much of his time since then acting as director and caretaker for the park, was diagnosed with leukemia last year and began treatment in early September. With nobody to immediately take over those duties, the park is just beginning to fall into disrepair and ultimately faces an uncertain future.

“I don’t see anyone doing what I did for this many years,” Lancaster, 69, said. “And I’m too sick to fight it.”

Though it’s designated as part of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the vast majority of the money for general upkeep is raised painstakingly by Lancaster and his wife, Patricia Grant. They also perform much of the landscaping and other manual labor themselves, originally learning the basics by taking classes at the Bronx Botanical Gardens.

Without the promise of financial security for whoever comes next, it’s been difficult to find someone with the expertise—and willingness—to take over. The Parks Department said it plans to hold information sessions this fall in an attempt to recruit a new caretaker, but Lancaster is anything but optimistic.

He’s quick to point out that years of unpaid labor inspired the park’s name: Dred Scott was a slave who tried, unsuccessfully, to sue his owner for freedom in what would become a landmark Supreme Court case. It began as a joke Lancaster’s daughter told, but the name eventually stuck.

“This is a modern-day slave story,” Lancaster said. “I started the bird sanctuary in the first place because I felt my government failed me … We were just trying to make a decent space for kids that live in the community.”

Looking at Grant Avenue now, it’s hard to imagine the way it was back when Lancaster first moved to the neighborhood in the 1980s. There were still apartment fires burning every few days or so, he said, and only one or two buildings we would now consider livable. Most of the block Lancaster lives on was an open-air drug market.

Starting in the 1990s, it took more than two years to clear the lot of debris and create what would soon become a community garden. After learning songbird migration routes lay directly over The Bronx, Lancaster set out planting native plant species that would attract the birds. His wife then designed a curriculum for after-school nature programs that would serve neighborhood children, but it was hard to elicit the same sort of buy-in from the community at large.

“People were never going to go for a bird sanctuary in the Bronx,” Grant said. “They would say, ’What kind of crackpots are up there on Grant Avenue talking about a bird sanctuary?’ … They just didn’t get it.”

Once the vacant lot—and the neighborhood at large—was cleaned up, everyone assumed developers and their bulldozers wouldn’t be far behind. That was the story behind numerous other community gardens and similar plots across the city, a phenomenon outlined in a 2002 paper published by the social science journal GeoJournal.

Except that didn’t happen. The Lancasters won a $500,000 grant from Mayor Bloomberg’s administration, then an EPA Environmental Champion Award, and the park that nobody seemed to want suddenly became a cornerstone of the community.

“In the end we made a lot of people happy with that space,” Lancaster said. “A lot of people got to do family reunions who had never had one before, people had weddings done there—people who couldn’t afford to have a wedding at the botanical gardens.”

Last August while Lancaster was working in the park, he began to feel dizzy and passed out. Grant found her husband a short time later and rushed him to the hospital, but bad news was already on the way.

After the cancer diagnosis, Lancaster began reflecting on his life’s work. He still plans to put in as much time as possible during treatment to ensure the park’s continued success, but is slowly coming to terms with the future—with or without the sound of songbirds brightening up his little corner of New York City.

It was the people, after all, who made Dred Scott Bird Sanctuary a success—and not the other way around.

“We didn’t create that community,” Lancaster said. “The space and the people did. Even when we didn’t have the tools to properly take care of this place, the neighborhood used it for what they felt they could use it for.”

“We just opened the gate, and they came in.”

Posted in Bronx Life, Community Resources, Featured, Southern BronxComments (0)

New Park Opens in Hunts Point

The Hunts Point Landing, a new park in the Hunts Point Peninsula opened today, reports NY1.

The new park offers kayaking, fishing and 1.5 acres of open space on the waterfront.

The park is part of The South Bronx Greenway, a plan that aims to improve waterfront access and provide recreational opportunities to the community.

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Feds seek to solve impasse over Bronx bridge, NY Daily News

A Bronx bridge project, which has languished for years due to a legal fight between Amtrak and New York State’s Department of Transportation, could finally become a reality,  thanks to the intervention of the federal government.

According to the NY Daily News, the bridge over an Amtrak rail line will eventually connect two new waterfront parks located in Hunts Point and West Farms Square. It will serve pedestrians and cyclists in the area.

Rep. Jose Serrano (D-South Bronx) asked the the U.S. Department of the Interior to broker a meeting between the state transportation office and Amtrak, which has reportedly refused to cooperate with the project, now costing taxpayers $150 million.

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[VIDEO] Bronx smokers fuming over ban

The City Council voted 36-12 to extend the smoking ban to parks and recreation areas.

By Ethan Frogget

Posted in Bronx Life, Multimedia, Politics, The Bronx Beat, VideoComments (0)

Tribeca Coyote Will Be Taken to an Undisclosed Location

A statue of "Major the Coyote" stands by the southwestern entrance of Van Cortlandt Park. Photo: Ashley Harris/The Bronx Ink

A statue of "Major the Coyote" stands by the southwestern entrance of Van Cortlandt Park. Photo: Ashley Harris/The Bronx Ink

On Thursday, the Bronx Ink reported that city officials were considering releasing a wild coyote captured in Tribeca in Van Cortlandt Park. Today, we learned that the coyote’s final destination will be kept secret.

Officers with the New York City Emergency Services Unit caught the coyote on Thursday after shooting it with a tranquilizer dart in a parking lot on Watts Street and the West Side Highway. As of Friday morning, the coyote was being held at the New York City Animal Shelter on East 110th Street. According to the Health Department, the coyote was observed overnight and “was found to come out of tranquilization safely and appears healthy.”

The Health Department said the Parks Department is now working with New York Animal Care and Control “to release the animal in a city park that possesses a more suitable natural habitat for the coyote.” Though Van Cortlandt Park was considered as a possible home for the coyote, the Health Department said, “to avoid stressing the coyote, and disturbing its relocation process, we will not be releasing the name of the site where it will be relocated.”

This coyote might not be moving to the park, but the Bronx already has several of the animals in residence. Wild coyotes have been known to frequent both Van Cortlandt Park and nearby Woodlawn Cemetery.

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Tribeca Coyote May Find New Home in the Bronx

A statue of "Major the Coyote" stands by the southwestern entrance of Van Cortlandt Park. Photo: Ashley Harris/The Bronx Ink

A statue of "Major the Coyote" stands by the southwestern entrance of Van Cortlandt Park. Photo: Ashley Harris/The Bronx Ink

A wild coyote captured by the New York Police Department might be on its way to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. On Thursday morning, police officers working with the Emergency Services Unit caught the coyote in a parking lot at the corner of Watts Street and the West Side Highway. The animal was tranquilized, placed in a pet carrier, and transported to the New York City Animal Shelter on East 110th Street where it is still in custody.

Reached by phone on Thursday afternoon, a parks department spokesperson said they were in the process of determining if, where and when the coyote would be released. The 30-pound female coyote was first spotted downtown on Wednesday.

One of the potential destinations being considered for the coyote is Van Cortlandt Park, one of the only places in New York City with an established coyote population. Several wild coyotes already make their home in the park and the city has previously released other captured coyotes there. In 1998, a statue was erected by one of the park’s entrances in honor of, “the first confirmed coyote sighting in New York City since 1946.” That coyote, a female nicknamed Major, died on the nearby Major Deegan Expressway in February, 1995.

Coyotes are rarely found elsewhere in the five boroughs, but recently, the animals have been making an increasing number of appearances inside the city limits. In February, three coyotes were spotted on the Columbia University campus in Manhattan.

According to a 2006 report from Professor Emeritus Robert E. Chambers of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, coyotes have “been present in New York state at least since 1920” as they “extended their range eastward after wolves became extinct in the eastern U.S. and southern portions of Canada.” At the time Chambers said there were “between 20,000 and 30,000” coyotes living in New York.

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