Thanks for the video. I'm not from NY, not even from the USA, but I find this kind of citizen initiative very encouraging. Probably one of the best raison d'etre for the internet.
BTW, I looked up ridgewood reservoir, new york on maps.google.com and there's a big, brown hole in the middle of the area. What does that mean, are they digging a big hole, or is something wrong with the map?
I grew up in Bushwick and Ridgewood The brown hole is the cobblestone lining and young TREES!, the water is long gone. When I was a kid the lining was a slippery moss green. If you fell in you couldnt get out unless sombody threw you a line. Many of the Puerto Ricians immigrints of the time used it as a pool and drowned.
Last I was in there tiny tres were sprouting from between the stones. Sometimes after a hard rail it holds a couple inches of water.
Why would you want to stop Parks from turning the old reservoir into a usable park? It may be pretty now, but it's not serving any good purpose. We should be grateful that they're going to do something with it.
You know, if Parks ignored it you would scream that they're ignoring the outer boroughs.
It can be "usable" without destroying it. It can be used to teach children about nature and for passive recreation, like the Ramble in Central Park. Or should we bulldoze that too and repave it with concrete and synthetic turf?
I wouldn't want it to be all concrete and plastic, but I've been to that site before and I've walked in those basins and I can tell you that the way it's currently configured there's no good public use for it.
Maybe save one basin as a lake or something, but tear the rest of the thing down and start over.
Did you even watch the video? The site has become a haven for Eastern seaboard fauna & flora. A forest has reclaimed itself within the bounds of NYC and is flourishing. This is nature at it's best and it's happening right here in our midst. Ever hear of "don't disturb matter?" This is a fine example of that. Stop thinking of humans as the center of the universe. This is how the planet works and we should only seek to protect that from harm. Jamaica Bay is predicted by many as a pending ecological nightmare. here the City (Parks Dept.) has a chance to "reforest" (one of their own goals, see the Parks website) an area of the city. Well it's already done for you folks, just put a nice fence around it and some trails, park rangers, an interpretive center, and voila, everybody wins.
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Holy crap, this is in my district! Someone get me a Guinness and hand me my chainsaw!
So when is bloomberg going to sell this abandoned property for a new condo development?
Thanks for the video. I'm not from NY, not even from the USA, but I find this kind of citizen initiative very encouraging. Probably one of the best raison d'etre for the internet.
BTW, I looked up ridgewood reservoir, new york on maps.google.com and there's a big, brown hole in the middle of the area. What does that mean, are they digging a big hole, or is something wrong with the map?
That's water - one of the basins still has a lake in the middle of it.
Oh! Water! I should have figured that out. That's where the ducks are swimming on in the video, I guess :-).
I grew up in Bushwick and Ridgewood
The brown hole is the cobblestone lining and young TREES!, the water is long gone.
When I was a kid the lining was a slippery moss green. If you fell in you couldnt get out unless sombody threw you a line.
Many of the Puerto Ricians immigrints of the time used it as a pool and drowned.
Last I was in there tiny tres were sprouting from between the stones.
Sometimes after a hard rail it holds a couple inches of water.
What can we do to try to stop Parks Dept. from continuing?
Basins 1 and 3 contain trees. Basin 2 currently contains about 4 feet of water. I inspected the place myself.
Back in the 60's this thing was quite an amazing sight heading out of Brooklyn On the Interbrough parkway (Jackie Robinson PKWY NOW)
Even back then as kids during summer we would go in there and see all sorts of bugs, lizards, frogs and snakes.
It was like going to another country, in the 70's it became a druggie and homeless den.
Brilliant. Well done Newtown Historical.
Queens needs real historical societies like yours.
Enough of the personal histories.... what can we do to try to stop Parks Dept. from continuing to develop the place?
Why would you want to stop Parks from turning the old reservoir into a usable park? It may be pretty now, but it's not serving any good purpose. We should be grateful that they're going to do something with it.
You know, if Parks ignored it you would scream that they're ignoring the outer boroughs.
It can be "usable" without destroying it. It can be used to teach children about nature and for passive recreation, like the Ramble in Central Park. Or should we bulldoze that too and repave it with concrete and synthetic turf?
I wouldn't want it to be all concrete and plastic, but I've been to that site before and I've walked in those basins and I can tell you that the way it's currently configured there's no good public use for it.
Maybe save one basin as a lake or something, but tear the rest of the thing down and start over.
Did you even watch the video?
The site has become a haven for Eastern seaboard fauna & flora.
A forest has reclaimed itself within the bounds of NYC and is flourishing.
This is nature at it's best and it's happening right here in our midst.
Ever hear of "don't disturb matter?"
This is a fine example of that. Stop thinking of humans as the center of the universe. This is how the planet works and we should only seek to protect that from harm.
Jamaica Bay is predicted by many as a pending ecological nightmare. here the City (Parks Dept.) has a chance to "reforest" (one of their own goals, see the Parks website) an area of the city. Well it's already done for you folks, just put a nice fence around it and some trails, park rangers, an interpretive center, and voila, everybody wins.
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