Disgraceful field conditions at FMCP

Dear Queens residents,

I have been involved and against the Flushing Meadows Park theft for several years. I am a founding member of Save Flushing Meadows Corona Park, I was featured on a radio call in show and in a video against the theft, I was a litigant alongside senator Avella and several other community activists in a winning lawsuit.

So you can imagine my disappointment when knowing, what I know about this park, and knowing that the Wilpons, and the USTA, make millions of dollars a year off of our parkland! I see the fields in this condition.

This is “field 6”. There are a few other fields in the same condition. This is appalling. Where is all the money going? We as a community deserve better, we expect better, we demand better.

Alfredo Centola
Community Activist

Why it's important to research history

From the NY Times:

since 2015, most of the Red Hook fields have been closed because of lead contamination in the soil. A $107 million cleanup by the New York City parks department has been delayed, leaving residents, coaches and parents anxious and confused.

“We need our fields back,” Mr. Bazemore said. “But safe.”

Problems started in 2012 when the parks department and the city’s health department learned of a dissertation by an environmental scientist who identified close to 500 lead-smelting sites around the country. One of the smelters once stood in Red Hook, right across the street from the housing projects and right on top of some of the playing fields.

In the late 1920s and ’30s, Columbia Smelting and Refining Works operated on the corner of Hicks and Lorraine Streets, leaving lead in the soil that would eventually become Fields 5, 6, 7 and 8 — the same fields that Mr. Bazemore and generations of children once played on. The parks department and the health department tested the soil in 2012, finding lead levels four times the safe limit on the surface and nearly 10 times the limit further underground. They quickly closed them. A concrete pad to guard against the lead was laid down. The fields and grass were hydroseeded.

In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency did further testing in the surrounding fields and found more elevated lead levels, causing Parks to close the fields for a four-phase cleanup that has yet to begin.

Work was set to start this spring on Fields 5 through 8 — the worst of the bunch and closest to the housing projects — but has now been pushed back a year because of delays in the construction bidding process. A contractor is now being approved and work should be completed by fall 2020, when a 12-inch buffer of clean fill will be topped by a drainage layer and then synthetic turf.

Just think what we could avoid if the city consulted historians once in a while. Or at least looked at old maps...

Not all of Alley Pond Park is treated equally

"The part of the park near Union Turnpike and Winchester Blvd is overrun with weeds and hasn't been cared for in months while the tennis courts are fit for kings." - Linda S., Bellerose

Posturing over pavilion

From The Forum:

Borough advocates have been pushing for preservation at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park since the city secured funding to restore the New York State Pavilion, which stands within it.

In the latest chapter of ongoing efforts to beautify the northeast Queens park, state Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) announced he helped secure $250,000 along with the city Parks Department to renovate two baseball fields there, officials said. Hevesi and Parks acquired the money through a Community Capital Assistance grant and said it will help install new backstops and fencing, re-grade the infield and add grass turf in the center to prevent flooding.

[Not the Pavilion]

Hevesi’s announcement came just days after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo rolled out more than $5 million in awards to 14 different historic spots that suffered damage from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 – one of them being the New York State Pavilion.

Cuomo allotted $127,000 of that money to the city Parks Department to help pay for a conditions assessment of damages to the pavilion’s cable roof structure.

[Wow! $127,000! That's like 1/10 of 1% of what's needed to restore it.]

This month, the New York Mets baseball club also announced it would be donating part of Friday’s home game ticket sales towards the People for the Pavilion advocacy group to help preserve the pavilion in celebration of the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the World’s Fair. In a statement, the team reflected on the historic site and how extra funding was needed to help keep it standing.

The team is playing like shit. I bet that was a huge haul of dough! And the Mets just noticed that the Pavilion needed help after being in the same park with it since 1964?

If anyone thinks these efforts are serious, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell you.

Times covers up Parks Dept's Heritage Field debacle

From A Walk in the Park:

The blogosphere lit up on Friday after the New York Times published an embarrassing front page above the fold story on the replacement parks as part of the building of the New Yankee Stadium. Apparently the 'Newspaper of Record' couldn't find a single person who had anything negative to say about anything. The problem is they did.

First, Field Of Schemes's Neil deMause weighed in and then Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder. That in turn prompted a response from one of the contributors and editor of this news site, Geoffrey Croft, to respond.

The city's vile rhetoric was not exclusive to the Times. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe continues the administration's, "Who Are You Going To Believe, Me Or Your Lying Eyes?" campaign in comments to WNYC where he insults the South Bronx community, who for the rest of their lives, will be impacted by the actions of Mr. Benepe's boss and state legislators. The Bloomberg administration apparently thinks its not enough to cause irreparable harm but also to continue to insult the poorest community in the country.

The Yankees Win. The Yankees Win. - Geoffrey Croft

From a letter sent to Atlantic Yards Report by the author of A Walk in the Park:

The Yankee Stadium controversy has not gone down the memory hole, as the Times would have its readers believe. No, the Times has instead chosen to ignore this issue as they have done since Day One. Unfortunately for Times readers the editors never felt this was a story so is was ignored. During the Stadium and parkland approval process a Times editor famously said of the community not being aware of the impending project and initially not mobilizing opposition more quickly and strongly, "they should have known."

For Bronx residents - and for the taxpayers at large - it's not enough they will have to forever endure the impacts of this irresponsible project, apparently they will now have to continue to suffer the indignity of irresponsible coverage in the "Newspaper of Record."

According to the New York Times, everything is swell in Yankee replacement park land. I'm happy the Times reporter thought the fields looked nice, and her reporting discovered people playing on them on the first day they were open felt the same. With the enormous taxpayer funds used to build them and the delay is this really a story, much less a front-page story? Obviously not.

They chose not to report on a story that impacts some of the poorest people in the country. This is shameful, irresponsible, but unfortunately not surprising.

For the truth, read the Broken Promises report.

Avella eyes Whitestone CYO property

From the Times Ledger:

The courts have taken the next step in foreclosure proceedings against the owners of a vacant Whitestone property, but a lawmaker hopes to intervene before the lot hits the auction block.

Northeast Queens civic leaders would rather see the 6-acre cluster of undeveloped land, along 150th Street near 5th Avenue, turned into sports fields, which is why state Sen. Tony Avella is hoping to snag the property.

“If it’s done properly, I absolutely think it is a good idea,” said Al Centola, president of the Malba Gardens Civic Association.

Centola has had his eye on the property for several years after the company known as Whitestone Jewels LLC failed to pay its mortgage.

As a result, in 2007 La Jolla Bank began foreclosure proceedings against the company. In 2010, the lender was bought by One West Bank, the institution currently foreclosing on the property.

Late last year Queens Supreme Court Judge Orin Kitzes ruled in One West Bank’s favor.

A lawyer was recently assigned by the state courts to find out exactly how much is owed on the lot.

It was not clear when he was assigned, but Friday afternoon when a call was placed to the lawyer known as a referee, he had not even been informed of his assignment to the property.

After the referee determines how much money is owed, he will submit a report to Kitzes. The bank will ask for a ruling to move ahead with an auction and the referee will put a notice in the paper, according to a court clerk.

But this is where Centola hopes Avella will intervene.

The lawmaker is hoping to work with the bank to circumvent an auction.

“We are talking with the bank,” Avella said. “I want the city to acquire that for a park.”

It was not clear whether Avella’s discussions have paid off, since the bank cannot ask for what is known as a judgment of foreclosure until after the referee’s report.

Little Bay Park needs help

From the Times Ledger:

Community leaders and elected officials are working through a number of avenues to improve Little Bay Park in Bayside, saying the park has been neglected for too long.

Located in the shadow of the Throgs Neck Bridge, the 55-acre beachside greenspace offers sports fields, a bike path and a roller hockey rink, but it has seen little in the way of improvements since 1999, when $1.2 million in city money funded the creation of the path and rink.

On Monday afternoon, City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) and Malba Gardens Civic Association President Al Centola met with representatives of the city Parks Department at the park — bounded by the beach, Cross Island Parkway, Utopia Parkway and Totten Avenue — to discuss ways to fix the soccer fields, which suffer from poor drainage and other woes because of their location near the salty waters of Little Bay.

Centola hopes at least one of the park’s two soccer fields can be fixed in time for next year’s season, but the cost to do the needed work is proving prohibitive. Halloran said it costs $2.3 million per field to outfit them with artificial turf, or $1.5 million for sod. The price tags are so high because of the need to do extensive drainage upgrades before undertaking such work.

It's Bloomturd's world (we just live in it)

From The Real Deal:

To the chagrin of area residents the Queensboro Oval, a park beneath the Queensboro Bridge, was quietly turned in to a year-round private tennis club by the city without the knowledge of community residents. More than 100 area residents showed up last night at a Community Board 8 meeting to voice their disapproval, many with their dogs and some in softball uniforms. "We have no say in the matter. It's all about money," said Bradley Cohen, a long-time user of the park. Sutton East Tennis Club, which formerly erected a bubble on top of the park eight months out of the year, will now operate the tennis club year-round with hefty membership fees for the summertime. The city estimates $2.2 million in revenue from the club by 2011, which many residents don't believe is worth it.

From the Daily News:

Holding signs reading "Save Our Field" and "People Not Profit," opponents lambasted the city for cutting a secret deal with a tennis center that charges fees of as much as $180 an hour - and $800 a week for a kids camp.

"It's a money-making, greedy scam," said Jessica Bondy, 37, a mother of two daughters.

"I was one of two girls in Little League and I learned to play ball on this field," she said.

Community Board 8 chairwoman Jacqueline Ludorf said the Parks Department had vowed to let the baseball players back. But "now they say they can't do that," she said.

"I think it's a done deal," she said. Locals are wondering "how can you take this away from us when we have so little?" she said.

Parks caught lying about Highland Park again

From the Daily News:

In 2007, the agency issued 410 hours of permits for Highland Park's existing ballfields. That jumped to 753 hours last year, but included a two-week carnival that accounted for 195 hours.

Parks spokeswoman Patricia Bertuccio said the permit lists don't account for countless pickup games and practices on those fields that don't require prior approval from the agency.

The Parks Department's website displays this:



So, they are going to tear down a ready-made nature preserve to build ballfields for practices that are not supposed to be held on ballfields because there are too many people who want to play games on them, yet there was a documented lack of people playing games on the fields for the past few years. In Adrian's world, this makes sense.

Park conditions are disgraceful

From the Daily News:

The Parks Department should be ashamed.

If you want to see the arthritic hand of your government at work in the city's parks, become a Little League dad like me.

In the past two years, I have been on almost every sandlot in eastern Queens, as my kid has played for a Little League team and a CYO baseball team, in spring, summer, and fall seasons. We've played in Cunningham Park, Alley Pond Park, Harvey Park, McNeil Park, Golden Fields, Crocheron Park, College Point Fields, Flushing Park, Peck Park and more.

And I am very sad to report here that almost every single field is a disaster.

Many Little League games are played during the week, starting at 6 p.m. And in its infinite wisdom, Parks closes the public bathrooms in Alley Pond and Crocheron and other parks at 5:30, just in time for scores of kids - who must hydrate while playing sports - and all their families - who sip soft drinks and coffee - to arrive for a game.

This time, 11 taxpaying fathers who work all week, and who also pay soaring sales and real estate taxes to this city, had to lug heavy buckets of dirt, dig irrigation trenches, rake, shovel and till the field with their own garden tools to make it playable for the children of Queens. As the men toiled, several Parks trucks drove past. Did a single worker stop to help? Or loan a broom, rake, shovel, wheelbarrow, or, God help us all, a helping hand?

Nope.

The game was played. But Mike Bloomberg sure didn't score any runs.