Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

The end of the summer’s nearly upon us New Yorkers, and you don’t want to be caught at home on the couch, or futon, or…seat cushion on the floor. Don’t forget the City’s beaches close after Labor Day, so you might just want to take this time off from the rat race to relax and soak up a little Labor Day weekend sunshine. If you’re looking for a little more action though, check out a couple of these exciting Labor Day festivities going down around New York City:

-Labor Day 5k and 10k On Roosevelt Island

If you want to get moving this Labor Day, in a different kind of race, NYCRUNS will be hosting a 5k and 10k race on Roosevelt Island, complete with post-race breakfast. The action begins Monday morning at 10 a.m, and pre-registration is available on the NYCRUNS website.

-Unicycle Festival on Governor’s Island

Yes, you heard that right. Unicyclists will unite this Labor Day weekend on Governor’s Island to show of their wheel(s). All sorts of spectacles guaranteed to transpire. Helmets are strongly encouraged.

-Electric Zoo Festival

The Electric Zoo music festival is happening all Labor Day weekend in Randall’s Island Park. Featured acts include David Guetta, Benny Benassi, Skrillex, Knife Party, the Bloody Beetroots and tons more. Electric Zoo is an all-ages electronica festival, guaranteed to get you dancing so hard you’ll need Monday just to recuperate.

-Wasabassco Burlesque

On Friday, The Bell House in Brooklyn is celebrating Labor Day with “Take This Job & Shove It,” which includes “work-related burlesque and go-go.” Admission is $12, but the show is free if you dress all in white. There will be pickleback drink specials and burgers on the grill. We’re thinking this sounds too good to pass up!

-Improv Show Ft. 30 Rock Comedians 

Scott Adsit and John Lutz, of 30 Rock fame, are going to combine their improv chops for the first time ever this coming Labor Day. It’s going down at the Upright Citizens Brigade  comedy club in Chelsea. Head over to the UCB to get your laugh on before/after checking out…

-Food & Drink Specials All Around Town 

NY Mag has provided an extensive list of food and drink specials around the City, including everything from Oyster eating competitions to deep fried Oreos. They’re even making it easy and giving you a map, in case you’re stumbling around in a food coma come Labor Day weekend.  Check it out here.

Summer’s wrapping up, so don’t miss this exciting action! Let’s face it, New Yorkers, we could all use it.

—Compiled by Alissa Fleck

The tricky Brooklyn Bridge - photo by PeterKellyStudios

Don’t forget your swimmies.

Comptroller John C. Liu said yesterday that after a 2009-10 city audit on the safety of its bridges, the Department of Transportation still has yet to make some obligatory repairs. And considering bridges can already be somewhat eerie, that’s a bit disconcerting.

This audit, performed by the Audit Bureau, found that, of 122 “Red Flag” defects, which are dangerous defects and must be fixed within six weeks of DOT notification, 71 were not acted upon in time and, furthermore, were not being monitored for further deterioration.

The DOT did act quickly on all but one of 112 Prompt Interim Actions after the initial report, which are defects deemed very dangerous and require remediation within 24 hours, but Comptroller Liu’s statements, over two years later, do make one think: On which New York bridges should I hold my breath?

A new April 2012 list was released with bridge-safety overall “ratings” and the DOT deems that any rating below a five on total scale of seven denotes a “deficiency” in bridge safety. Furthermore, in 2009, Crown Point Bridge, a pass between northeast New York and Vermont, was deemed too unsafe and destroyed with a 3.375 rating.

Below, based on this consensus, are New York’s most dangerous bridges:

• Triborough Bridge on Randall’s Island, crossing over the FDR – 2.89 rating
• Brooklyn Bridge crossing over I-278 Brooklyn-Queens Expressway – 2.94 rating
• Brooklyn Bridge crossing over the FDR at Pearl – 3.78 rating
• Part of the FDR crossing over South Street – 3.73 rating
• Part of the 11th avenue Viaduct crossing over the Long Island Railroad West – 3.75 rating

These bridges, although not all major overpasses, and not all named, are consistently deteriorating, so hopefully Comptroller Liu’s words will hold some weight in the eyes of the DOT, and we don’t all re-enact an Indiana Jones scene.

Don’t look down.

“It’s all about the kids,” said Mary Wittenberg, the club’s president and CEO—and she wasn’t kidding.

Childhood obesity is a growing problem in the city. More children are plagued with inertia as they sit and play mindless video games all day instead of exercising. Not the altruistic youths of the Road Runners though. They ran, cheered and participated in the free-event for children between the ages of 4 and 15.

The day was filled with a variety of track and field events that went from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. The club’s youth programs, like the “mighty milers” and the “young runners program,” encourage kids to get moving in as little as a 15-minute a day walk or a half-mile run and to reach milestones through incentives. Those programs are integrated into local schools and encourage kids of all levels to learn.

Throughout the day, the children who participated showed great fortitude as they charged toward the finish line and were resilient as they shook each other’s hands after each competition.

However, the day did not come to an end without an “agony of defeat” moment. That was at 1:40 p.m., when Arron Carlo from P.S. 246 took a commanding lead over Jack Makari from Booker T. Washington middle school in the 11-year-olds 400-meter run. Carlo was just yards from the finish when he fell and lost to Makari. But the fallen runner showed the character of what the day was all about when he picked himself up, finished the race and went on to accept second place

Without question, the premiere event of the day was the 4-year-olds 55-meter dash. The winner in the girl’s division went to little Prizila Negrete, the indisputable champion.

“I started running two years ago, but now I don’t have to wear diapers when I run,” she said.

Could a future Paula Radcliffe or New York’s own Kara Goucher be in the making?

P.S. 269 Principal Phyllis Corbin summed it up best when she said her passion was, “healthy minds and healthy bodies.”

She brought 38 kids from Newkirk Avenue in Brooklyn to participate in the event, along with school coach Kirk Clarke.

Corbin sat in the bleachers talking to Road Runners’ Laura Paulus about the significance of the group’s youth programs to inner city children. The programs are a platform for children that are invaluable and validate everything that this city and Mayor Bloomberg are striving towards in promoting health and the fight against child obesity.

The battle is on against trans-fats and salt, but the kids of New York City also have the world of running to help them build confidence, self-esteem and physical prowess and it is available for free. No matter what the outcome of each race, all the kids who participated in The Jamboree went home winners.

For more information on NYRR visit www.nyrr.org.

Chris Breslin is an actor and resident of the Upper West Side.

The most recent chapter for Randall’s Island unfolded last month in state Supreme Court, when Justice Marilyn Shafer rejected the latest iteration of a deal sought by the city that would give a consortium of private schools primary access to playing fields. Shafer ordered the concession to undergo the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) and said that the city must pay the attorney’s fees of the petitioners in the lawsuit, a group that included various local community and educational groups, most based in East Harlem and the South Bronx.

Before & After

Shafer’s language in her decision was particularly harsh. She found that the respondents (the city and the Parks Department) tried “to flout and undermine the purpose of ULURP,” using “an argument demonstrating more daring than logic.” She called other supporting arguments “preposterous” and “misplaced, counter to public policy, and without gravitas.”

“The law is the law, and it says that when you’re going to change the use of public land you have to go through [ULURP],” said Norman Siegel, one of the lawyers for the petitioners.

Randall’s Island is no stranger to controversy. Several years ago, the city announced plans to allow a private company to open a large recreational water park on the island’s northern side. Local opposition was gathering strength when the project was canceled because of funding problems.

In January 2008, a private school deal similar to the current one was rejected by Shirley Kornreich, another Supreme Court Justice, largely on the same grounds. As with the current proposal, the agreement would have offered priority access to Randall’s Island playing fields to a group of private schools that included Chapin, Buckley, Dalton and Brearley, in return for $52 million over 20 years. The money would have been paired with additional Parks Department funds to pay for an extensive reconstruction project.

Rather than submit the proposal to the land use review process, the city and the Randall’s Island Sports Foundation, which operates the land for the Parks Department, put together a new accord. The deal they eventually struck and tried to enact last summer guaranteed access to half the fields during after school hours for the private schools, this time for $44 million over 20 years. Public schools and other groups could apply to use 40 percent of the fields during the same time.

According to Siegel, some efforts were made to reach a compromise after Kornreich rejected the initial agreement, but no tangible results were ever reached.

“There were discussions,” Siegel said. “I was brought into some of the discussions, but they never really went anywhere. The Manhattan Borough President tried to intervene and come up with a compromise, but it never reached any sort of an agreement.”

Borough President Scott Stringer still argues that community needs should be better incorporated in the deal. In a statement, he said: “I fully support the court’s decision to include community input. Throughout the city—and in Manhattan especially—this type of open space is rare, a precious resource for the public. We need to make sure that the fields on Randall’s Island are able to be enjoyed by all students, regardless of what school they attend.”

East Harlem Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito echoed those sentiments.

“My position has been that the amount of work on Randall’s Island merits additional review,” she said in a statement. “It should go through ULURP. I think that this court decision really validates what the community and myself have been saying.”

Baseball fields still under construction. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

Most crucial to the city’s hopes in the new proposal was the claim that the arrangement would fall under the “currently existing use” clause of the Rules of the City of New York, which allows major concessions to bypass the land use review process as set forth in the New York City Charter.

Geoffrey Croft, the President of NYC Parks Advocates, a petitioner in the suit, argued that only cosmetic changes separated the new deal from the initial one.

“This was exactly the same thing,” he said, “except instead of using parkland all throughout the island, they were claiming they did not have to go through ULURP because they were using parkland that had already been allocated for their purposes.”

Shafer’s decisive rejection of the city’s claims constitutes another victory for the neighborhood groups that have fought the city for several years now over this issue.

“As was determined in the decision, the East Harlem community was denied the legal right to be informed and involved in the renovation and construction of a large parcel of public land within its district,” Marina Ortiz, president of East Harlem Preservation, another petitioner, wrote in an email.

“The larger question is, should public parkland as a policy allow for people who can pay for the use of public land to a disadvantage of people who cannot pay?” Siegel said. “I want to make it clear: We are not opposed to the 20 schools having access to Randall’s Island. The question is whether they’re being given an unequal advantage because they are wealthy.”

For its part, the Parks Department released a statement from Commissioner Adrian Benepe: “We disagree with today’s ruling as the Randall’s Island sports field redevelopment project would expand access dramatically for public school athletes and community-based organizations during the prime after school hours, supply millions in private investment to support this public park and its fields and fulfill the Parks Department’s mission of providing venues for fitness and respite in every community.”

Amid such arguments, there remains a crucial distinction that is often obscured. Both recent court cases only applied to the proposed deal providing usage of the Randall’s Island fields to private schools. The renovation project itself has not been legally challenged and is now nearing completion, even without the input of private funds. The vast changes, involving renovated fields, new turf and improved roads and infrastructure, are apparent to anyone who remembers the old Randall’s Island of threadbare fields scattered with broken glass and avian droppings.

And if a deal for private school funding can’t be worked out, it is unclear who could be left holding the tab for this work. The Law Department and Parks Department both referred questions to each other, but did not respond when pressed for additional information.

Another significant development last summer was the opening of a $16 million tennis center on the island that also bypassed the review process, this time without challenge.

“Small community groups don’t have the resources to tackle multiple things,” Croft said. “By the time we found out about the tennis concession, it was already under construction.”

The root of such conflict, as usual, is buried within the eternal issue of field space in New York City, where eight million people struggle for equitable athletic opportunity in an area that simply cannot accommodate them all. This problem has touched many parts of the city beyond Randall’s Island, and will undoubtedly continue to do so as long as teams continue practicing in hallways, schoolyards and on fields that have been divided repetitively into smaller patches of turf. And schools, which typically sponsor the most athletic squads, will always struggle for guaranteed access.

According to Susan Amron, deputy chief of the city’s Environmental Law Division, everyone who sought a permit for field access on Randall’s Island last fall got one. The city is currently receiving permit requests for the spring.

For now, the proposed arrangement between the city and the private schools sits in limbo. Siegel plans to file a legal motion “very soon” that would force the city to appeal Shafer’s decision or begin the land use review process within 30 days. The process, which typically takes six to eight months, would send the deal for review and approval to Community Board 11 in East Harlem, City Council Member Mark Viverito, Borough President Stringer and the Department of City Planning.

Farrell Sklerov, a spokesman for the mayor’s office, said that the city is reviewing all its legal options, including appealing. Siegel believes the case will eventually end up in the Appellate Division, something opponents hope will not come to pass. Ortiz said she would welcome negotiations for a compromise, and Croft said further legal proceedings would not be beneficial for either party.

There may yet be room for negotiation. In response to an email query, Amron, from the Law Department, wrote, “We are always willing to consider reasonable bases for resolving disputes.”

Randall's s Island before the Transformatoin

According to the Randall’s Island Sports Foundation, a non-profit group that has a private-public partnership with the Department of Parks & Recreation, the current refurbishment is nearly 50 percent complete. So far, only a complex known as the East River Fields consisting of five soccer pitches—three made from artificial turf and two natural sod—is open and in use. It lies near the footbridge at the bottom of Ward’s Island, a southerly neighbor of Randall’s that maintains an independent name despite having long since been joined together by landfill.
According to Aimee Boden, the foundation’s executive director, the early reactions are all positive. She said that improved irrigation allowed the artificial fields to drain in two-and-a-half hours when the remnants of Tropical Storm Hanna passed through the city a couple of weekends ago.
“In the old days, we would squeeze together something wherever we had a patch of grass and call it a field,” Boden said. “These new ones are real, well-designed fields.”
The final plan calls for 63 new fields—11 of them synthetic—along with extensive additions to local infrastructure, new bike paths and improved bathroom and parking facilities. Some of the fields will also have lighting so that play can continue after dark. To top it all off, this summer has also seen the addition of nine courts to the current tennis complex on the island and a renovation of the golf range.
It all adds up to a heady, new era for this spit of land. Long known better for hosting a number of psychiatric hospitals and some fields of very poor quality, Randall’s and Ward’s islands are enjoying a bit of a renaissance now, one that might put them on the map for more than serving as a conduit for the Triboro Bridge. The next step will come in October with the unveiling of another six fields. After 11 years of planning and expectations, by the time the project is complete by the end of 2009, it will increase the playing field inventory of the city by 5 percent. And that could do wonders for a variety of athletic leagues.
The lack of fields “is the single biggest limiting factor to any sports organization,” Herzog said. “There’s such tremendous demand, but there simply aren’t enough places to play.”

Athletes warm up on one of six new East River Fields that have opened on the southwest corner of Randall's s Island.

Some critics remain upset with the project, however. After the original deal with the private schools fell apart, work continued on Randall’s Island with the city paying the full estimated cost of $150 million. But a coalition of schools and citizens from East Harlem and the South Bronx felt the plans had not received adequate review and filed suit to stop the construction. Judge Kornreich dismissed the case in May, removing one of the final hurdles to the project’s completion.
“It’s a mess,” said Geoffrey Croft, the president of NYC Park Advocates, a non-profit watchdog organization. “It’s an environmental and public policy mess. We’re talking about millions that have been spent on that island over the last six or seven years without any public oversight. There’s no community-based participation or consultation. They never did any type of research to see if these ballfields were needed.”
Croft also said that the new fields destroyed local wildlife and trees on the two islands and that private schools are still receiving preferential treatment under a “pay-to-play” system.
In response, Boden stressed the foundation’s outreach to surrounding youth and community groups.
“This isn’t Chelsea Piers,” she said. “This is a public park. Although we report to Community Board 11 in East Harlem, we also do outreach to the South Bronx and parts of Queens.”
According to Boden, the new fields are available to a variety of groups, ranging from youth leagues to colleges to private and public schools. She also noted that the foundation is creating a salt marsh and restoring wetlands that were damaged when the strait between Randall’s and Ward’s islands was closed. The new marsh is visible just south of Icahn Stadium on the shore facing Manhattan. Boden conceded that some trees were removed during construction but said that ultimately 4,000 new trees will be planted by the time the project is complete.
Next Monday at 10 a.m., the City Council will convene an oversight hearing on some of the issues surrounding the ongoing construction. For now, though, five new fields with some exceptionally springy turf are open for play and will doubtlessly be busy.