Parks. Everybody loves them. They are green, full of trees, and the perfect escape for people seeking refuge from NYC’s concrete jungle. But these days the word ‘park’ is unfortunately a matter of semantics. According some, tossing some green astroturf on the ground, installing a couple of plastic benches along a cement walkway, and sprinkling a couple of real plants here and there for good measure is considered a park.
We all know Greenpoint is hardly green, but thanks to the infusion of developer money and some motivated city officials, we are about to get two brand spanking new parks. How they look and smell, well…that’s where we come in.
This Thursday at 6:30 pm at the Dupont Senior Citizen Center (entrance on Eagle Street) the City Parks Department will be unveiling its vision for Newtown Barge Park. What makes this meeting particularly important is that Greenpointers actually have a say in the design. From the information floating off of many people’s lips, you can bet the Park Department’s idea for Greenpoint’s newest park will include acres of off-gassing artificial turf, asphalt basketball courts for all the new rich kids about to move onto the block, a soccer field, and lots of plastic (aka cheap) benches. If any or all of this is true, then our new Barge Park will be the perfect complement to our Superfund site Nuhart Plastics!
Don’t know diddily squat about designing a park? Think again.
Which of these parks would you want to chill in?
Or maybe you prefer this…
Alternatively, don’t go to the meeting and we’ll see some more of this.
So if you care to have a park, and I mean a REAL park that promotes clean air and living things, get your fannies down to 80 Dupont St at 6:30 pm this Thursday, January 8th, and make your intentions known. This is a one shot deal as the community board will be approving on the final design on January 13th.
A key point relating to design is the cost of maintenance. There’s no need to go far. Look at central park. It costs a lot to keep the place beautiful, and taxpayers do not want to pay more. So, if we are going to have high maintenance green areas in our neighborhood, we better start a conservancy type of group, donating money and time because the parks department is not going to do it. Look at Transmitter. The landscape could be beautiful but it’s so neglected (see weeds and large dead branches on the willow for example).
So what happened here? Can we get some notes from the meeting?
Stay tuned, Jim. A recap post is on its way!