Well, if you've been in the Park on any pleasant day since then, you've seen how well people are minding the signage and locked gates... (thanks to Joe for this photo from May 14)...
Now, someone has taken it a step further — literally... there's a step on the western side of the lawn to make it easier to navigate the fence...
The Park is currently short on open space with the start of the field house reconstruction. For the next 18 months, the space behind the field house — dubbed the Slocum area as it includes the Slocum Memorial Fountain — is also closed to the public, taking some picnic tables and the spray showers out of commission.
There's now an extra step to make navigating the fence even easier...
Top and bottom photos by Steven
28 comments:
People use the only available open space they have. We are deprived of public space and there's no plan for additional public space in the area. 7th St between Av A and B can be shut down to traffic, parking removed and create more open space for people. Take a field trip to 91st St between 1st and 2nd Avenues and see how people in wealthier neighborhoods get life quality upgrades from the city. We can have the Tompkins Farmers Market moved there on Sunday instead of holding it on the narrow Avenue A sidewalk. There are similar options available all over the neighborhood: half the roadway on 2nd and 4th Streets between Av A and 1st Av can be de paved, trees planted and open up space for people for example
Some signs are followed. Some are not. I don't make the rules.
Too bad all the grassy areas along the East River under the beautiful shading cherry trees are now parking lots. Every time I go by there, I'm just dismayed about how little progress was made. Boy were they on it, at a furious pace to destroy hundreds of 80 year old water absorbing, shading trees along the East River, but now, a snail's pace to rebuild.
It's messed up that people aren't giving the Tompkins Square Park lawn a chance to grow but where else can people go?
The only way to enforce the rules of the park is too have either the NYPD or Park Enforcement Officers issue summonses to people for going on the grass. I know it will not be liked or popular, but it is the only way to enforce the rules and maintain the parks grounds. When I go up to Central Park and accidently walk on the areas, they have closed off for planting grass I am barely on the grass for a minute before all kinds of uniform personnel are yelling at me to get off the lawn. It is annoying but that park looks great.
Either people are illiterate or they are divorced from reality. I walk through this lovely park daily and am frustrated people aren't respecting the signs, which are obvious to anyone with adequate eye sight. It's simple. Respect the rule and wait for it to be lifted. What if the reseeding doesn't take? If this was another city in another country such as Japan or anywhere in Scandinavia, this wouldn't even be a conversation or a public issue. Don't get me started on the trash left behind in Tompkins during the weekends. This is why we as a community can't have nice things.
We have cars and motorcycles driving around without license plates. We have a neighborhood full of unlicensed cannabis shops. Not sure where the manpower will come from the NYPD to police the lawns in the park. If the parks would put more prominent signage up and if we individually start calling out scofflaws we may have some progress.
Remove car parking, turn half of every cross street into garden space with trees and benches.
We were told by the city and Parks that we'd have more park and rec space in lieu of the East River closing.
We are in a post-pandemic-post rules matter time. Grass needs time to grow, it will be a long summer so if you want the benefits of a grassy field have a little patience.
It seems to me that this exercise takes place every year, and every year 100’s of people a day decide that the sign couldn’t possibly refer to them. And, besides, look how many other people feel the same way. What’s one more. Enjoy the dirt.
Good luck with signage
Makes me feel sick when I see the entitlement of people going in when the gates are clearly locked and the signs are up. WTF is that about??
@9:37 top posting these impractical and obnoxious "ideas", it detracts from the conversation. We need roads and vehicles. Enough. Stop using this comment board for that.
It's obnoxious for the city not to let East Village/Lower East Side communities enjoy using the free parking lot along the East River.
In the past, the gardener would just close half the lawn for seeding by using the red, wooden deer fencing. The central lawn hasn’t been cared for over 5 years and many of the bare patches are so compacted that they’ll never take seed unless the ground is turned by hand or rototiled.
The gardener would also water the lawn twice a week. But we’ll let NYC Parks go through this exercise all year just to prove it won’t work — and maybe next year they’ll do it right.
P.S. Park staff used open open the adjacent lawns during this process — except now two have been transformed into “grass museums,” and the previously active lawn along Ave B is now a glade of uncared for cherry trees
Funny timing EV Grieve. The Tompkins Square Park Central Lawn was reseeded (again) today!
that you? https://hellgatenyc.com/parking-spots-are-historic-nyc-outdoor-dining
@10:48 AM -
First, why stop posting ideas in the comments? That's Grieve's call. Get yer own board.
While I agree in spirit with @9:37 extreme proposals would be a wrenching shift and the current administration isn't going to think out of the box when the don't think the easy stuff through.
@Choresh Wald posted great ideas at the top which would not be a wrenching change for anyone and allow full emergency service access - the one really salient point the pro-car pro-free-parking crowd brings up. Moving the Green Market to a closed 7th street would be fantastic. Inconvenience the free parking searchers a little more but it's a crowded city, there will always be tradeoffs, and the traffic / parking state would still take up vast amounts of the surrounding real estate.
The local point is that neighborhood is being lethargically under managed. The lawn, the Library closed for a couple of months but we'll see. East River Park, is the renovation on schedule? The Hudson is beautiful, we get chain link fences.
The first time I approached the intersection of Broadway and 42nd street from the east after Bloomberg had pedestrian malled Broadway going downtown I was astounded. It was no longer an insane traffic shootout. Let's advocate for a better city overall while keeping an eye on what is doable near term. And if you disagree post away and if Grieve is enjoying(?) the debate let's have at it.
It is somewhat predictable that no matter the subject matter of the original post there is a subset of person for whom the answer to every question is an angry diatribe against cars and the people who use them. The level of vitriol seems disproportionate to many of us. It's not healthy to carry around that much anger. Perhaps that's what the commenter meant about repetitive posts.
For anyone interested in seeking alternative green spaces while the lawn at Tompkins Square Park is being reseeded, check this link to see what's open at East River Park.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/escr/project-updates/project-updates.page
2:17 PM
Take it up with the ... (deep voice and reverb) Blog Master
When pigs fly
Reseeding is obviously not the answer it would take several years for that grass to fully come back without any lawn use. You need actual turf planted with already fully grown grass and roots. Yes that would take more money not just 50lb bag of seeds from Home Depot. This would make this park so much better and you don’t have to lie in dirt and dust.
I was just walking home through the park twenty minutes ago. One of the signs has black graffiti on it now. WTF? Others are just childish and disrespectful. Do they realize neighbors such as us actually live nearby? Do they realize workers were hired to reseed this lawn which takes time and patience? I do my damnedest to abide by community rules and by a social decorum. When people decide to jump over the gate and disregard this sign, it is a major F you.
More money and turf is the only solution. Ain't gonna happen. Or ... what do you say Rivera?
Might want to remind Carolina Rivera of that…
The Avenue B section with cherry trees is officially a “wildlife habitat”(according to the parks officers giving out tickets). I personally love having the greenery to look at. Way nicer than dirt.
City closes, rips up, destroys and shrinks amount of available public green spaces in LES/EV down to itty-bitty tiny little patches of space, gets rid of everyone who cares for those green patches, from volunteers to nonprofit environmental groups to city-paid gardeners, and then people wonder why overcrowded desperation crush of humanity trying to get outside for a bit of air during beautiful days are hard on the only stretch of lawn now available for blocks and blocks and blocks.
City will eventually use desperate-human wear-and-tear as Big Excuse eventually to put in "low-maintenance" (because when it comes to city parks, cheap is never cheap enough) artificial turf instead.
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