Renegade Cabaret comes to High Line Park off Neighbor’s Fire Escape Above

Great story in today’s New York Times about Chelsea resident Patty Heffley who has lived for 31 years above the High Line before it was a park (she even witnessed a train going by a few times in the early days!).  Her fire escape looks right onto the end of  (what is now) High Line Park at 20th Street and, in addition to viewing her laundry (which for years she has hung off that fire escape), park goers can now listen to and watch the “Renegade Cabaret” she presents there.

Lighting installed by contractors to brighten stairs of the High Line Park also beam a very artificial light onto her fire escape and into her living room so Ms. Heffley has turned something that could be perceived as a negative into a positive and added a bit of a wild element to the otherwise manicured park.

From the article: 

At 10 p.m., closing time for the park and the cabaret, Ms. Heffley and Ms. Soychak bid the audience goodnight. “If you see the party patio lanterns lit,” Ms. Heffley told them, “you’ll know something is going to go on when it gets dark.”

Robert Hammond, a founder of the Friends of the High Line and a member of the audience, remarked, “This is what we wanted,” referring to the cabaret. “It is going to keep it wild more than that will,” he continued, pointing to a patch of wildflowers.

As for the lights that shine like kliegs into Ms. Heffley’s windows, he said ruefully, “We screwed up on those.” But he brightened when told that she had said they were good for a stage. The Renegade Cabaret, he said, “is born of a mistake, just like the park.”

The full story is here.

Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park — Home to Two Stanford White-designed structures

I went by Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn over the weekend. The Urban Park Rangers in the Fort Greene Park Visitors Center told me a bit of the park’s history. They informed me that Stanford White, principal of McKim, Mead & White (noted NYC architects in the early 20th century) and renowned architect of the Washington Square Park Arch (and Judson Church, among others), was also the designer of the park’s Prison Ship Martyrs Monument (pictured) and the Visitor Center/Rest Rooms, a building the American Institute of Architecture apparently refers to as “the most elegant outhouse in the world.”

Fort Greene Park is quite a treasure and a well-utilized park. Nothing too bohemian or out of the ordinary happens there but it has its purpose as a place you go to just … be. (Or play basketball or tennis!) It’s pure park vs. a more “public space” like Washington Square where things … happen in public. (No performances or protest appear to occur regularly at Fort Greene Park.) And while Washington Square Park is just (under) 10 acres, Fort Greene Park is a bit over 30.

The only unfortunate thing about Fort Greene Park is that it appears entirely ruled by the private Fort Greene Conservancy, to the point where you’d (almost) never know it was part of the New York City Park System!

Some background on the Park from the Parks Department: During the battle of Long Island, in the late 1700’s, “the British held thousands of captives on prison ships anchored in the East River. Over 11,500 men and women died of overcrowding, contaminated water, starvation, and disease aboard the ships, and their bodies were hastily buried along the shore. These brave patriots represented all thirteen colonies and at least thirteen different nationalities. In 1808 the remains of the prison ship martyrs were buried in a tomb on Jackson Street (now Hudson Avenue), near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The Brooklyn fort was renamed for General [Nathanael] Greene and rebuilt for the War of 1812. When the threat of war passed, locals enjoyed visiting the grounds of the old fort for recreation and relaxation. The City of Brooklyn designated the site for use as a public park in 1845, and [Brooklyn Daily Eagle] newspaper editor Walt Whitman rallied popular support for the project. In 1847 the legislature approved an act to secure land for Washington Park on the site of the old fort.”

The Monument for the prison ship martyrs (there is a crypt underneath with their bodies), erected in 1908, was the last building Stanford White designed. He did not live to see it built. He was shot to death in 1906 by his (ex) young mistresses’ husband on the roof of Madison Square Garden, a building he also designed (a previous version, not the one standing now).

Fort Greene Park was first named Washington Park; the original master plan was designed by Frederick Olmsted and Calvert Vaux (architects behind Central Park and Prospect Park among many notable works) in 1864.

Photos: Cat

On Bryant Park — Wednesday May 27th Hosts Author Dennis Cooper

Bryant Park Lawn Closed Sign May 09

I have mixed feelings on Bryant Park (take note of that sign posted a few weeks ago … everything is just so … precious).

It is one of the most commercialized and controlled of NYC’s parks (I suppose it’s also smack in the middle of midtown and not really in a neighborhood, per se). I have the feeling that the NYC Parks Department would like all the Parks to be like that one. Yes, it is governed by a private Conservancy. A true story: at one point the Conservancy hired a hawk to keep pigeons away. This went astray when the hawk attacked a small dog and they had to abandon the practice. Can’t we co-exist with the pigeons in a … park?

It’s not Washington Square Park - it has a whole other purpose as a park and public space. More about getting away from it all quietly then communing with or being entertained by your fellow New Yorkers — although City Search NYC says to come to the Dennis Cooper reading and talk (info below) to meet people!

Bryant Park does seem to have a wide array of activities going on perhaps because they need to create some as they don’t happen naturally (… am I being too hard on them?).

Nonetheless, here is the event info:

This Wednesday, May 27th from 12:30-1:45 p.m. the Bryant Park Summer Reading Series presents:

Dennis Cooper, Novelist, Poet, Critic, Editor, Blogger, and Performance artist (per Wikipedia), will be discussing his new book, Ugly Man, a book of short stories (published by Harper Perennial), and career. Hosted by Tony O’Neill.

Cooper’s site.

You can ‘follow’ Bryant Park on Twitter!

Bryant Park is at 42nd Street and 6th Avenue.

The Selling Off of our Public Space by the NYC Parks Department — Private Fashion Event To Take Over West 4th Street Ball Courts; Parks Dept. Bypasses Community Board Approval

Yes, there was a Washington Square Park Task Force/Community Board 2 Parks Committee meeting last night addressing Washington Square Park’s Redesign: Phase III.  But truthfully what was perhaps more interesting was what happened after that part of the meeting ended.

CB2 Parks Committee chair Tobi Bergman announced that they had a last minute addition to the agenda. At that point, four young women who had entered the Task Force meeting mid-way (they didn’t look like the regular Washington Square Park folks) went to the front of the room and sat down, clearly ready to give some kind of presentation. I couldn’t even fathom what it might be but it had ‘this is going to be interesting‘ written all over it.

Turns out it was.

These women represented clothing designer Joseph Abboud, who, along with JC Penney and the NBA are launching a fashion line, and have been given the go ahead by the Parks Department to take over the West 4th Street (Basketball)Courts for a day and night on Monday, May 18th for a private event - an “editors’ preview” – for the sum of $17,000.00. The event planners met with the Parks Department about a month and a half ago and just now, one and a half weeks before the event will occur, the agency sent representatives from the company before the Community Board to present the plan – after the contracts have been signed.

The New York City Parks Department basically threw these four women into the fray with no idea what they up against (community disapproval, for one). Instead of the Parks Department sending its own representative to explain this decision – which is supposed to receive Community Board approval first – they sent company representatives who clearly didn’t realize there was any issue with what they were doing.

And, really, why would they? In Mike Bloomberg’s New York, why would you think there’d be any problem with a corporation taking over and seizing a public space for a private event, shutting out the … uh… public?

There’s no possible reversal or canceling of the event at this point. I gather the Parks Department figured it was better that the Community Board hear of this now rather than after the fact and alerting them before hand (as is technically required) might have put this plan in jeopardy. The Community Board might have not approved it or put stipulations on the event.

Tobi Bergman commented, “We don’t love people using parks for private purposes.” That was the basic sentiment of the Board during the meeting which was outraged and concerned that approval of the event did not come before them first.

I asked Geoffrey Croft from NYC Park Advocates about this privatization of parks and the bypassing of the Community Board and he said: “This is common practice by the Parks Department. This administration goes out of its way to avoid community based planning and consultation.” In addition, “The City is using Parks as cash cows. The money doesn’t even go into the parks. However, that also becomes a slippery slope because [if it did] the temptation to exploit our parks becomes so much greater.”

Part of the problem – which perpetuates situations like this – is that the Parks Department is severely underfunded and neither the Mayor or the City Council seem ready to address this anytime soon.

It was suggested at the meeting that the company (or someone) put up notices in advance to alert the basketball and handball players at the West 4th Street Courts – it’s a very popular court for both playing and watching – that their courts were being taken over for a day and therefore unusable. The company has the public space from 6 a.m. to midnight. The event occurs from 6-8 p.m.

I’ve written here before about privatization-of-public-space in New York City. See previous entries: Union Square and pervasive influence of the local Business Improvement District, the selling off of the Washington Square Park Fountain to the Tisch Family by the Parks Department ($2.5 million) and another well publicized take over of public space in Central Park by Chanel last fall given the green light by the Central Park Conservancy.

Photos: Left, Wallyg; Right: Footprintzstars

Central Park’s Wild Turkey Hanging Out at Corner of 59th and 6th

Wild Turkey off Central Park running path

Apparently Central Park, which spans from 59th to 110th Streets and covers 840 acres, is getting a bit boring for a wild turkey that took up residence there. The turkey was spotted yesterday outside the confines of the park at the corner of 59th Street and 6th Avenue. NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe — who unfortunately has not always been on the up & up to date around redesign details of Washington Square Park and other public space issues, typically leaning toward reducing, corporatizing and privatizing public space — does seem to appreciate wildlife. Commissioner Benepe told the New York Times he spotted the turkey in the rain. He said, “I saw the wild turkey on the corner of 59th and Sixth Avenue, right in front of the statue of Simon Bolivar, just completely out in the open by itself, as if its a pigeon, except it’s five times bigger.”

Read the Times’ story here.

Chanel Park has arrived; Times’ review declares it “a dubious undertaking” and “delusional”

The Chanel handbag advertisement… oops. I mean art installation… has landed in Central Park and will preside there until November 9th. The New York Times writer Nicolai Ouroussoff had some choice words for it last week, stating:

“…if devoting so much intellectual effort to such a dubious undertaking might have seemed indulgent a year ago, today it looks delusional.

It’s not just that New York and much of the rest of the world are preoccupied by economic turmoil, although the timing could hardly be worse. It’s that the pavilion sets out to drape an aura of refinement over a cynical marketing gimmick. Surveying its self-important exhibits, you can’t help but hope that the era of exploiting the so-called intersection of architecture, art and fashion is finally over.

And then:

Opening the pavilion in Central Park only aggravates the wince factor. Frederick Law Olmsted planned the park as a great democratic experiment, an immense social mixing place as well as an instrument of psychological healing for the weary. The Chanel project reminds us how far we have traveled from those ideals by dismantling the boundary between the civic realm and corporate interests.

So what’s the cost to place a 7,500 square foot ad in Central Park?

According to the July 25th Metro, “Chanel will reportedly pay the Central Park Conservancy at least a million dollars for a three-week stay, and the city will collect another $400,000.”

And the Tisch Family paid a paltry $2.5 million to get their name – arguably – forever on the Washington Square Park Fountain…?

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe was asked by the New York Times back in July whether he “anticipated criticism for allowing Chanel to advertise one of its products in the park” to which he replied, “Everything has a sponsor.’”

Well at least everything under Parks Commissioner Benepe and Mayor Bloomberg.

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** This may just be the new “Waterfalls” — hopefully it won’t kill any trees or other living beings.

Note: I’m not advocating that people view this (I’d rather not give Mayor Bloomberg additional reason to tout economic benefits - of dubious projects – that don’t exist.  See also: Waterfalls) but, if you feel you must attend, the installation is free but tickets are reserved online.

* Read Metro’s July 25th story here.

* New York Times advance “slide show” of the “exhibit” which is equal parts art/spaceship/Chanel handbag ad.

*WSP Blog Previous post on this from July 25th.

Photo: Metro Photo Composite

A Quiz On NYC’s Parks Commissioner

Updated: Answers at bottom!

On Saturday night 9/6, NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe was honored by local group, the Lower East Side Ecology Center, along with others including NY City Council Member Rosie Mendez and No Impact Man Colin Beavan. Parks Commissioner Benepe’s name in the list of honorees drew particular scrutiny from parks/public space/environmental activists and advocacy groups.

Urban environmentalist and activist, Mitchel Cohen of the Brooklyn Greens and No Spray Coalition (fighting toxic pesticide spraying in NYC), took action. He designed a flyer and he, along with Village community activist and parks advocate, Elizabeth Adam, put them in the hands of those attending the event. (In Saturday’s pouring rain, I might add!). The flyer, the text of which I’ve posted below, asked some illuminating questions. Do you know the answers? I’ll post them later today.

***How Much Do You Know About NYC’s Parks Commissioner?

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WHY IS AN ECOLOGY CENTER HONORING ADRIAN BENEPE?

As Commissioner of NYC Parks Department, Adrian Benepe has presided over an unprecedented destruction of our parks on behalf of private business interests, from Washington Square to Randall’s Island, Union Square to Kaiser Field in Coney Island.

1. How many trees did Adrian Benepe’s NYC Parks Dept. chop down in East River Park?
a. None. We need to preserve our trees as an essential part of NYC’s urban environment.
b. 2. We had to remove two trees because they were already dead, but this didn’t affect the wildlife habitat there.
c. 18. Trees do absorb waters from high rains and floods, but we figured that NYC has plenty of trees and is elevated high enough above the flood plain.
d. 105. Yea, and if you guess this figure you probably also believe that there are crucial unanswered questions in the takedown of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

2. Why is Adrian Benepe ripping up natural grass and installing synthetic turf in many of NYC’s parks?
a. He believes that artificial turf represents progress.
b. He believes that it’s too difficult to maintain real grass the way God intended, especially with 70 percent budget cuts to the Parks Department.
c. He likes to watch the helicopters and trucks spray toxic pesticides that pool on the artificial turf, the better for children to play in.
d. He thinks that the 168 degrees temperatures the synthetic turf can reach and the toxins it gives off can be controlled by spraying water on the fields.

a child

3. On the left is a photo of a child whose feet were severely burned while playing on the Parks Department-installed rubber mats.
a. How hot can these mats get when the sun shines directly on them?
b. How many children are treated each year for similar burns?
c. Why didn’t Benepe have these materials tested before installing them in playgrounds, to avoid children getting burned?
d. What has been the City’s response to children being burned?

4. Which multi-millionaire provided funds (and how much?) to bulldoze Washington Square Park in order to have the new fountain named after him?

a. Laurence Tisch

b. David Rockefeller

c. Osama bin-Laden

d. George Bush

The above is just a small sampling of what’s happening to our parks. For much more information, contact the Brooklyn Greens at BrooklynGreens-owner -at- yahoogroups.com, and we’ll send you a list of people and organiza­tions in your neighborhood who are working to protect and improve our parks.

Text Above, Courtesy Mitchel Cohen, Brooklyn Greens

*************************************************************************

Photo: Courtesy Geoffrey Croft, NYC Park Advocates.

ANSWERS: (How many did you answer correctly?)

1.-d; 2.-b&d; 3. a-165 degrees Fahrenheit; b-at least 12; c-good question! d-Believe it or not, NYC plans to fine parents whose children want to play barefoot in the parks; 4.-a $2.5 million

Parks in the News: Brooklyn Bridge Park, McCarren Park Pool, New York City Waterfalls(Okay, not a Park …)

A small segment completed at Brooklyn Bridge Park

*The “arborcidal” (tree-killing) New York City Waterfalls Public Art hours are being cut in half to preserve the Brooklyn trees (which are not responding well to its salt water mist). Not exactly scientific but … it’s something. (See previous post on this.)

*Last concert (Sonic Youth) at McCarren Park Pool in Greenpoint, Brooklyn performed on Saturday (8/30) before the space reverts back to an actual pool, ending its recent incarnation as a popular concert venue. Pending Landmarks Preservation Commission approval, pool reconstruction scheduled to be completed in 2011. (Long time that seems?) Sunday’s (8/31) New York Times has the story.

*Brooklyn Bridge Park: Recently it was announced that BBP’s completion is behind schedule at least five years. Community activists are (again) pushing for “housing-free” Park. Presently, 1400 units of “luxury housing” are in New York State’s plans for the park. The Brooklyn Paper reports: “In the decades since community activists and local officials started planning Brooklyn Bridge Park, the proposal has changed from a sprawling public greenspace that would be part of the city’s regular park system to a state-built and-operated development whose open-space component would be maintained through fees charged to residents of luxury condos within the park’s footprint.”

Book On Tompkins Square Park; Corresponding NY Times’ story: “East Village, Before the Gentry”

There’s a new book entitled, “Tompkins Square Park” by photographer Q. Sakamaki in which he documents Tompkins Square Park in the late ’80’s through today: the changes that have swept through the Park and its surrounding East Village neighborhood.

It is twenty years ago this week since the famous Tompkins Square Park riots – something that is difficult to imagine happening today (the most famous one was provoked by a 1 a.m. curfew in that Park, seen as representative of massive and unwelcome changes being inflicted on the neighborhood). It’s not that I want that to happen. However, there is an equal amount of social injustice today and anger in Mayor Bloomberg’s New York. It’s hidden behind a societal malaise with a blind eye to the damage inflicted to people amidst the the monumental changes being pushed throughout our city. Yet It’s not just malaise. These changes are obscured from most people’s eyes and wrapped with a bow around Mayor Bloomberg’s “hero to the City” image. They’re hidden behind mammoth glass buildings once inhabited by a diverse mix of people not quite as shiny who are quietly pushed out. There is the attitude: “If you can’t afford to live here, get out.”

The changes to our public spaces, particularly Washington Square Park, reflect this also.

Colin Moynihan writes about the book and its author in today’s New York Times‘ story “East Village, Before the Gentry:”

Twenty years ago this week the neighborhood was also much like a war zone as protesters clashed with police officers seeking to enforce a curfew in the park. Mr. Sakamaki’s book is timed to that anniversary and documents the street skirmishes, yet it is also a kind of manifesto.

“This book focuses on Tompkins Square Park as the symbol and stronghold of the anti-gentrification movement, the scene of one of the most important political and avant-garde movements in New York history,” Mr. Sakamaki writes in an introduction.

Strolling through the neighborhood, he elaborated, saying that he favors safe streets and finds no romance in poverty. But, he said, change that is primarily driven by monetary profit “destroys the lives of poor or weak people.”

As his black-and-white photographs make clear, Mr. Sakamaki found much that was life-affirming amid the conflict and penury. The energy and camaraderie of people who banded together in adversity appealed to him; so did the desire of East Villagers to create their own social order even as they received little help from mainstream society.

See New York Times slide show of photographer Q. Sakamaki’s Tompkins Square Park book.

Brooklyn journalist challenges NYC Parks Commissioner Benepe at Red Hook Park food vendors “return” ceremony

The Red Hook Park Latin food vendors were operating their food carts for over 30 years in that location when the NYC Parks Department threatened to remove them and replace them with more corporate, shiny entities (think Shake Shack-like). Local and political uproar (Senator Chuck Schumer, included) caused the Parks Department (which has oversight over the Park and vendors) to reverse course, a rare and welcome occurrence.

However, the City insisted they get new trucks (costing up to $50,000) and meet other regulations while moving them out of their original location. The vendors had to bid on the location of the spots they’d occupied for three decades when they were “under the radar.” Before Ikea and Fairway were moving into the neighborhood.

Gersh Kuntzman of the Brooklyn Paper, who has been covering the issue, challenged Parks Commissioner Benepe recently at the ceremony commemorating the return of the vendors to Red Hook Park.

Kuntzman writes:

…When I went to the “Welcome Back” press conference, I was ready to listen to the speeches, get a few benign quotes, and chow down.

But Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe treated the vendors — and the media — like such children that I lost my appetite. First, Benepe laughed about all the red tape he and his agency forced the vendors’ main organizer, Cesar Fuentes, to cut through.

“We really put him through the ringer,” Benepe joked. “When bureaucrats get together, they can make almost anything impossible. I’m surprised he didn’t give up.”

Many did. Only six of the original 13 vendors were back — now consigned to the street outside the park, rather than inside the fence next to the soccer fields where they belong. And those vendors complained bitterly — though certainly not to Benepe — about their added expenses and the needless three-month delay in getting their final approval from the city bureaucrats who hold too much power over their right to earn a fair day’s pay.

Read the full story and see video (of the event) from the Brooklyn Paper.