By Nora Bosworth

Two barbells lie beneath a peeling bench, bound by a rusty chain that allows just enough room to lift them if one should choose, though it’s such a forlorn sight it’s hard to imagine anyone has actually done so in recent years. This is the current “exercise area” of Tompkins Square Park.The weights are emblematic of the general disrepair throughout Tompkins, which is not immediately noticeable but lies in the details – or lack thereof – amidst the historical site.

The nature of the park may very well change, however, over the next few years. On Thursday, Community Board 3 voted unanimously to support the East Village Parks Conservancy’s preliminary efforts to plan a multi-million dollar renovation to the 10.5 acres of green space.

The Conservancy hopes not only to replace the park’s rundown and decrepit bits, but also to give it the “design integrity” that it had before renovations in the 1990s “stripped the park of its elegant historic character.”

Tompkins Square Park in 2007. Photo by Daniel Avila.

Roland Legiardi-Laura, Co-Chair of the East Village Parks Conservancy, and Gail Witter-Laird, Landscape Architect for the East Village Parks Conservancy, presented the proposal, which is still in its very first stages.

Legiardi-Laura, who also lives right next to Tompkins, expressed their reason for appearing before Community Board 3 bluntly:
“After twenty-two years of use we really think its time to rethink [the park]. We know its a long process; we need your letter of support.” “We are just here to plant the seed,” added Witter-Laird.

She explained that the park’s original details were lost a couple decades ago, when the city took an industrial and utilitarian approach to fixing up the area – installing, for instance, a chain-link fence, which Legiardi-Laura called “prison-like”.

“A lot of the time when people see the park they don’t necessarily see it as a historical park, and I think thats to a large degree the way it was renovated in the nineties,” said Witter-Laird. “It didn’t give attention to the details that make it a historic park.”

The plan comes at a strategically wise time. The Landmark Preservation Council recently declared East 10th street between Avenue A and Avenue B, which borders the park, a landmark district. If part of Tompkins’ perimeter is officially a landmark then the park itself no doubt merits repairs and enhancements, the Conservancy reasons.

“None of us were around in the thirties and forties and fifties when those historic details were taken out,” said Witter-Laird. “I think its time to start to think about the park as part of that landmark district and something we want to preserve and protect.”

Advocates want to remove chain link fences in the park

Moreover, during the last twenty years, almost all of lower Manhattan’s significant parks and squares have been reconstructed: City Hall Park, Union Square, Madison Square, East River Park, Washington Square, Battery Park, Sara Roosevelt Park and the recently renovated Stuyvesant Square Park. Sprucing up Tompkins would just be a continuation of this momentum.

The Conservancy’s plan currently has three stages, according to their presentation. In the first phase the park’s perimeter would be rebuilt, smoothing out the pavement, curbs, and improving the fencing. They would also fortify protections around the fauna, and plant more trees.

A renovation would fix broken sidewalks around the park

The second piece of the plan focuses more on aesthetic improvements. The organization proposes improving the soils and the drainage system, building decorative fencing, and adding granite curbs. The Conservancy also wishes to restore the lawns, increase lighting, preserve the monuments, and – East Villagers rejoice – “reduce rat habitat.” In the final stage the group envisions adding new outdoor fitness equipment, (lonely barbells do not an exercise area make), installing a bike share station, and rebuilding the “comfort station and maintenance area”.

“I’ve been into the bowels of the park house with the former supervisors, and everything there needs to be done from the ground up,” said Witter-Laird.

Prior to the Conservancy’s petition, the board spent over an hour hearing from Friends of Gulick Park, the organization that has been spearheading the reconstruction of Luther Gulick Park & Playground.

In his speech, Legiardi-Laura praised the progress that Friends of Gulick Park have made, saying, “We’re very impressed to see what you guys have done with Gulick park – we want to sort of model ourselves off of your model, in including the community. “

Perhaps this desire to garner community support is why the Conservancy’s current proposal is still quite vague; they are waiting to see how the public takes to the idea of fixing up Tompkins. The plan was already announced on an East Village blog, EVGrieve.com, where residents’ reactions were mixed. One member expressed concern that a beautified park would mean a spike in real estate prices. Another wrote: “I feel like I am in jail with all the tall black fences,” echoing Legiardi-Laura’s sentiment.

More practical matters, like where funding will come from – the Conservancy projected that the process would cost between ten and fifteen million dollars – remains to be seen. Yet the board’s approval of the Conservancy’s efforts to forge a plan may mark the beginning of an enormous opportunity. Witter-Laird ended her address with a hopeful nod toward the future.

“I think we’ve done so much in lower Manhattan, and I think this is a missing piece, and we’re just here to put that missing piece in everybody’s wish list, and have support going forward in advocating for the park,” she said. “The process of what we do first, and who we do it with – that’s all to come.”

By Nora Bosworth

Battery Park’s playground was one of the only in the city to receive a failing mark from the recent New Yorkers for Parks report, which surveyed 43 large parks throughout the five boroughs. But we think Zelda, the notorious wild turkey who has called the park her stomping ground for (at least) the last ten years, makes the space just perfect.

The organization’s report graded all its parks based on the following features: bathrooms, courts, drinking fountains, lawns, natural areas, pathways, playgrounds, sitting areas, trees, and water bodies. Each of the parts was judged for its maintenance, cleanliness, safety, and structural integrity. New Yorkers for Parks applied the same grading scale that is used in academia.

Battery Park, which is the 22-acre stretch of land that spans the coast of the Financial District, got an 89.

“The playground score decreased from 68 to 58 since 2010, due to persistent peeling paint on play equipment and aging, gap-laden safety surfacing,” the report explains. The study also lauds the park for its waterfront, which received a perfect score.

Yet it does not mention Zelda, who on Sunday was standing imperiously beneath one of the playground’s tables, daring the pigeons to approach. It’s not clear how long Zelda has reigned over Battery Park, though a New York Times’ article from 2003 may be her first recorded sighting.

“Few species would seem less likely inhabitants of an urban core, considering the wild turkey’s ungainly size, its native habitat in woods, mountains and swamps, and its diet of berries, nuts and insects,” the article reads.

A park worker, (who wished to go unnamed due to the Park Department’s policy forbidding employees to talk to the press), said they give her seeds, though he suspects her appetite is sated in other ways too.

“I think she gets some food off the tourists,” he explained, adding that visitors “seem to love her.”

It’s rumored that Zelda got her name from Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott’s wife. In the evenings the turkey roosts in the trees, and then comes down by day.

“We’ll come in the morning and see a blob up in the tree, and 9 times out of 10, that’s Zelda,” the employee said.

He is not sure how long she’s been around, but knows it’s been at least seven years. Wild turkeys, in their natural habitat, have an average life span of 3 or 4 years. But Zelda appears to have a survivor’s streak, reappearing after Sandy, to many people’s relief.

The playground, on the other hand, is still being reconstructed since the flooding. Despite its markedly low grade, the rest of the park compensated for the facility’s relative disrepair – which, the report explains, is exactly the problem: due to the Park Department’s limited resources, when one problem is solved, another pops up.

Holly Leicht, the Executive Director of New Yorkers for Parks, calls it a “property management version of ‘Whac-A-Mole.’”

In fact, the report showed that overall New York City’s parks have improved since the last report, which they published two years ago. 88 percent of the parks received A or B ratings. Nonetheless, Leicht has reservations about the positive findings.

“Only by growing the budgetary pie can we expect NewYork’s park system to be maintained at the high level of care we’ve come to expect in the past two decades,” she concludes. Whether such a pie will grow amid the present economic conditions remains to be seen.

In any case, go bring your child to Battery Park’s playground — not to use the facilities, which are apparently unsafe, but to spot Zelda while she’s still in her prime.

Cleaning up Hardy Park in the Bronx, photo by Daily News/Daniel Beekman

By now, everyone’s been getting cabin fever from hunkering down at home this past week. If your family’s been itching to go out and get active, consider volunteering with the Parks Department in the next few days (with children 12+).

To read the full article, visit www.newyorkfamily.com.

Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Ask a New York City mom if she’s worried about the sandbox germs her child plays in, and you’re likely to get a “yes,” along with a story about a disease that got passed around in one. Type “sandbox safety” on a parents’ listserv and you’ll usually see comments from parents who forbid or try to limit their children’s access to sandboxes.

But go to a pediatrician and you probably won’t get a warning about the common play area. So sandbox diseases must be an urban myth spread by overprotective parents?

Wrong, says Dr. Philip M. Tierno Jr., a clinical professor in the pathology and microbiology departments at New York University’s medical school.

Parents are smart to be concerned and vigilant, he says, particularly in public boxes that are not covered at night, like in New York City. He’d prefer his grandchildren didn’t play in such sandboxes but admits “my recommendations only carry so much weight.”
“Children are little bags of germs,” carrying more pathogenic organisms than adults, Tierno said, before adding that they are typically not infected by these dangerous beings.

Pigeons and stray cats pose some of the bigger dangers to urban park sandboxes. Rats, a big New York City fear, can also lead to problems, Tierno said, but they are less of a risk because they tend not to spend much time in sandboxes unless there’s food there, whereas a raccoon may burrow in and stay. Ants, spiders and other insects are also included on a long list of creatures that can lead to children’s exposure to harmful parasites and bacteria.

Tierno said there is the potential to be exposed to flesh-eating bacteria, necrotizing fasciitis, but stomach flu and diarrhea are the most common ailments that result from children playing in sandboxes. He said that without an epidemiological study, it’s difficult to quantify how big a problem it is.

“When a child gets a cold or diarrhea, no one is going to go back and be able to trace it to the sandbox,” he said.

Tierno, along with many other doctors, maintains, “Open sandboxes should be avoided.”

If children do use them, he recommends they wash their hands thoroughly after use, never eat or drink in a sandbox and never use one if they have an open wound or cut.

But he does not fault doctors who do not warn parents about this.

“Pediatricians aren’t the end-all of knowledge,” he said. “They’ve got enough on their plate. It’s up to parents to play the major role.”
Dr. Ari Brown, pediatrician and co-author of Baby 411 and Toddler 411, agrees that sandboxes left open at night should be avoided, although she’s more concerned with the little creatures on the children than in the sand.

“The No. 1 yucky thing,” she wrote in an email, is pinworms, which come from “little kids who scratch their little heinies while playing in a sandbox, get the eggs on their hands and deposit the eggs in the sand unintentionally. Kid No. 2 shows up in the sandbox, plays with contaminated sand, puts his hands in his mouth and voila! Pinworms.”

Brown, based in Texas, was surprised to hear that New York sandboxes are left uncovered. She recalls that when she was a preschool teacher, she used a sensory table tub that they’d put sand and other materials in for children to touch. She said the risk of a messy house is substantially higher than stomach flu, which is why she suggests using a plastic tub with sand outside.

Both the city Parks Department and the Central Park Conservancy, which takes care of about 20 boxes in the park, said they rake the sand daily for debris and change the sand at least once a year.

In 1989, the New York Times reported that the city was reducing the number of sandboxes as a cost-saving measure. This week, a Parks Department spokesperson said that the sandbox reduction back then had more to do with their loss in popularity from the Robert Moses era, the 1930s, when many park boxes were built.

“There has been a demand for creating new or revamping old ones and we look to include them in park renovation projects if the community requests them,” Philip Abramson wrote in an email this week.

He said sterilized “playground-grade” sand is used and that workers typically rake for hidden garbage on a daily basis. He added that nighttime covering wouldn’t prevent “much contamination” since sandboxes would still be exposed during the day.

Tierno said there are safer places in the playground. “Public parks have other things going on.”

(by Alissa Fleck)

NYU’s proposal encompasses 2.5 million square feet of land—the equivalent of the Empire State Building—just south of Washington Square Park, a press release details. The plan would “overturn neighborhood zoning protections, remove open space preservation requirements, end urban renewal deed restrictions, and take possession of public land.”

This expansion, which is currently prohibited under neighborhood zoning rules, would replace potential public park space with four large buildings, and take twenty years to build. This would turn the “park-starved” area into a longtime construction site.

Thus far the plan has been strongly opposed by NYU faculty, neighborhood residents and community members, according to the press release. The proposal’s approval also comes on the heels of NYU’s announcement of a 3.8% undergrad tuition hike.

“It’s unclear to me why NYU can locate whole campuses in Shanghai and Dubai, but can’t put a few more facilities a quick subway ride away in the Financial District or Downtown Brooklyn,” said Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) Andrew Berman.

“Given the Mayor’s outspoken support for his friend (NYU President) John Sexton’s grandiose expansion plans, we always knew the real fight would be at the City Council,” said Berman.

Borough President Scott Stringer announced his approval of the decision in a statement, commending allowances for playground space throughout construction and the elimination of commercial uses. Stringer expressed disappointment that other commitments, including preserving air and light for surrounding buildings, were not met.

“I expect the City Council to correct these mistakes,” said Stringer.

The City Council has sixty days to hold hearings and vote on the expansion. In the meantime, the GVSHP has compiled significant evidence of the drawbacks of the plan, all of which is available on its website.

But while the entire borough of Brooklyn was graced with a full ban on sightseeing tours, Upper West Side residents are still subject to helicopter noise.

Operators can fly over the center of the Hudson River to West 79th Street, then turn to fly south, center-west of the river. The flights will be at 1,500 feet or above to mitigate noise.

“[People] picnicking, strolling, walking dogs—they’re being impacted by helicopter flights that are doing nothing more than generating money for helicopter tours,” said John Jeannopoulos, an Upper West Sider who became concerned with the increase of these flights.

But forcing the helicopter operators to fly higher should ease noise problems, according to Robert Grotell, special advisor to trade organization Eastern Region Helicopter Council.

“Altitude is by far the best noise mitigation,” Grotell said. “We’re flying twice as high.”

If pilots are flying too low or breaking the regulations, West Side residents are encouraged to call the Helicopter Council’s toll-free complaint number at 1-800-319-7410 in addition to 311.

—Dan Rivoli

Correction added. It is the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

If approved, 16 sculptures by Spanish artist Manolo Valdes would be installed at various points along the malls, between Columbus Circle and West 166th Street. The sculptures would officially be unveiled May 20 and remain on display until January 2011. Eleven of the 16 sculptures would be installed within the boundaries of Community Board 7: five in Columbus Circle, one at West 63rd Street, three at West 72nd Street, one at West 96th Street and another at West 103rd Street.

The Valdes exhibition would be presented in conjunction with the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Broadway Malls Association and the Marlborough Galleries.