Photos from this summer by Stacie Joy
The Parks Department will present three options for the reconstruction of the Tompkins Square Park mini-pool, basketball courts and fitness area at a Community Board 3 committee meeting tom orrow evening (Oct. 15).
The presentation marks the next step in a project that has prompted concerns among some park users, particularly those who want the existing fitness equipment preserved.
As previously reported, a petition asking the Parks Department to remove the fitness area from the reconstruction plans had collected more than 2,600 signatures.
Supporters say the outdoor workout area, near 10th Street and Avenue B, serves a diverse community of regulars who use the equipment year-round. Several told EVG's Stacie Joy this past summer that they worry replacement equipment won't meet their needs.
Thursday's presentation should offer a clearer picture of what Parks has in mind for the three spaces. The options have not been made public yet.
The Parks, Recreation, Waterfront & Resiliency Committee meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at the BRC Senior Services Center, 30 Delancey St. between Chrystie and Forsyth streets.
The meeting is open to the public, with a Zoom option.
Previously on EV Grieve:
14 comments:
This exemplifies how the need for public outdoor spaces is woefully underserved in our community. Why do we have to fight over uses of little scraps of land, especially when new development is proceeding all around us (like the park area on 2nd St about to be built on)?
Important but (again) when will Parks department present a plan to repave the walking paths in this park?
I hope EVG & Parks Dept will post presentation online afterwards for those of us that cannot attend the CB3 meeting zoom or in person. Very much want to review it but I have rehearsal that night. Thank you!
One of the options includes a pickleball court replacing the North half of the handball/tennis wall…please come to the meeting and tell them how you feel about that!
Problem is, the Parks Dept no longer buys quality calisthenics equipment, and the 1990 equipment currently in TSP is the best in the city (I've visited around two dozen locations in all five boroughs) and the sturdiest. I used joke that the Parks Dept. knows so little about calisthenics equipment that they ask the vendor for advice -- and, of course, the City gets whatever the vendor can't sell to anyone else but the City (the typical buyer buys for their own use and has a clear sense of what's useful and what's silly novelty or breakable moving parts that require repair or a contract -- the City will buy all those leftovers on the advice of the vendor alone). At an in-person meeting a couple of months ago with the Parks' Manhattan chief designer (intelligent, sincere person), I asked "Where do you get your equipment expertise?" and she answered with a straight face "From the vendor".
Noooo! At last public meeting, the entire crowded shouted "No pickleball!" when Parks Dept suggested it.
I'd say the NYC Parks Dept buys pretty decent equipment. The problem is it gets used and abused on a weekly basis and then not replaced for months or years when stuff breaks down. And the old buildings like the one in the West Village are in such a state of decrepitude it had to be shut down. Same old, no money for basic services.
Hey XTC -- excellent point about maintenance, but with respect, take a look at the new equipment at Columbus Park. No one uses it except to hang their coats on, while the 40-year-old equipment is constantly in use and shows no signs of decline except maybe for the paint. Or look at the typical new parallel bars which are too low to allow full range of movement and too wide to support a shoulder stand. The two new high bars on 28th & 10th Ave began shaking in the first week after installation. The high bar installed not so long ago by the East River around 34th St had to be removed because it was so untable. In McCarren Park the Dept. installed two high bars (pull-up bars) with handles attached to them so that it's difficult to impossible to use movements over the bar without injury. And they did not include a single high bar without such handles -- a simple high bar is the most versatile piece of equipment precisely because it's so simple. The Dept. doesn't understand that. Instead they installed imitation gym machines that are frequently broken, and one broken so often that they dismantled it entirely. There are good bars in the city, but they are either installed forty years ago or they were installed by local conservancies, not by the Parks Dept.
Just leaving a late dinner. Might have been discussed but when is the meeting? Enough with pleasing the people that choose to live in the neighborhood for 2-4 years at most
Wtf! I already have to wait to use the wall!
Is the pool proposal going to be for adults or adults with children only ? If adults with children only- Everything proposed seems to be for younger men and parents and children. What about thinking about the needs of single women with no dogs who do not want to be approached or bothered by men? How about sectioning off a work out area for adult women only ( including trans women and anyone who identifies as a woman) who do not want to interact with men in the park? How about creating a safe space for Women only? Similar to the dog run being for dogs and owners only. Or similar to the playgrounds being for children and caregivers only. I have lived here and paid taxes here in this neighborhood since the late 1980s/ early 1990s. What exactly is planned for single women? Nothing proposed is for people like me. Also the park ABSOLUTELY needs to enforce no dogs in the field behind the “Hare Krishna tree”. I’m tired of arrogant transplants with their bred dogs running around the field leaving behind dog urine and dog poop. I propose the park safety/ police cracking down and writing tickets for all park rule breakers and using that money to support the people who feed the homeless and immigrants and anyone who is hungry. Including the volunteers just outside the park on 7th Street.
More transplants and NYU students? No. How about the needs of older people who have lived here and paid taxes here in 10009 FOREVER. What is in these proposals for us?
I second that
I agree with you
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