Mayor Bill de Blasio wants the city's parks and playgrounds to offer year-round equipment and recreational activites for adults and senior citizens, not only children.
The mayor presented that idea Monday morning, when he laid out several of his fund-raising goals during a closed-door meeting of the newly formed, 58-member board of advisers to the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, according to a document obtained by Capital.
His wife, Chirlane McCray, chairs the Mayor's Fund, a 20-year-old organization that solicits donations to bolster initiatives run out of City Hall.
The three-page document outlines three priorities for de Blasio and McCray, who met with the board at Gracie Mansion.
The first idea is upgrading parks, pools and playgrounds.
"In addition to the conventional park equipment for children and passive recreation space, the model envisions: multi-purpose equipment for adults and seniors; year-round programming for kids and adults; wifi connectivity; site specific apps complementing on-site programs; unique public safety elements grounded in community policing models - all of which will build on local community partnership and park 'ownership,'" according to the memo, which was distributed to those attending the meeting.
That program will be run jointly by the city's health, education and parks departments, the mayor's Community Affairs Unit and the NYPD.
And here are the members of the Fund. Miss Heather has the poop, er, scoop:
The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City Board of Advisors:
Husam Ahmad, HAKS Construction
Marisol Alcantara, West Harlem District Leader
Jo Andres, Artist, Filmmaker & Choreographer
Gina Argento, Broadway Stages
Barry Berke, Kramer Levin
Anthony Bonomo, Physicians’ Reciprocal Insurers
Barbara Bowen, Professional Staff Congress
Jill Bright, Conde Nast
Steve Buscemi, Actor
Derrick Cephas, Weil, Gotshal & Manges
Janet Dewart Bell, Communications and Policy Consultant
Cheryl Effron, Founder, Conjunction Fund & Founder, Greater NY
Jay Eisenhofer, Grant & Eisenhofer
Steven Feldman, Bullion International
Hal Fetner, Sidney Fetner Associates
Marian Fontana, Writer, Performer & Founder, 9-11 Families Association
Charlene Gayle, Macon Realty
Aron Govil, Ducon Technologies
Beth Green, Attorney
George Gresham, 1199 SEIU
Jon Halpern, Halpern Real Estate Ventures
Fred Heller, Metro Systems
Louis Hernandez, Former President, NYPD Hispanic Society
Anne Hess, MADRE & Philanthropist
Lorna Brett Howard, Philanthropist
Laura Imperiale, Tully Construction
Amabel Boyce James, Philanthropist
Orin Kramer, Boston Provident
Pam Kwatra, Kripari Marketing
John McAvoy, Con Edison of New York
Mary McCormick, Fund for the City of New York
Cheryl McKissack, McKissack & McKissack
Ron Moelis, L+M Development
Rud Morales, Primary One, Inc.
Mike Muse, Muse Recordings
Charles Myers, Evercore Partners
Cynthia Nixon, Actor
Ronald O. Perelman, MacAndrews and Forbes
Bruce Ratner, Forest City Ratner
Steven Rubenstein, Rubenstein Communications
Bill Rudin, Rudin Management
Bill Samuels, Effective New York
Mary Sansone, Congress of Italian-Americans Organization
Chris Shelton, CWA, District 1
Harendra Singh, Singh Hospitality Group
Daisy Soros, Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans
Jerry Speyer, Tishman Speyer
Rob Speyer, Tishman Speyer
Mary Alice Stephenson, GLAM4GOOD
Stuart Suna, Silvercup Studios
Ken Sunshine, Sunshine Sachs
Carol Sutton Lewis, Carol Sutton Lewis and William M. Lewis, Jr. Charitable Foundation
Jon Tisch, Loews
Dan Tishman, Tishman Construction
Estela Vasquez, 1199 SEIU
George Walker, Neuberger Berman
Jeff Wilpon, Sterling Equities
Steven Witkoff, The Witkoff Group
The names highlighted should get your attention. So much for the DeBlasios being real progressives. They're nothing but tweeders. Filling an advisory board with folks that have resisted and/or gotten around providing promised affordable housing, taken advantage of eminent domain for private gain, as well as a chick with an on-the-record a shady past, patners-in-grime with a slumlord who plans to use Newtown Creek environmental settlement money to build a hotel? What a joke.
You simply can't make this sh*t up.
11 comments:
Let's see Wilpon play his part. If he gets his mall, it better come with a grand pedestrian mall to connect the marina to the rest of the park. And let him pay for citibike expansion. The park is big enough that bikes to get around would be a nice amenity. The park has a lot of capital intensive needs. Like daylighting the river, replacing the decrepit fountain with a large field, reducing some of the excessive pavement etc...
I think that using developers to improve parks makes sense - the Queens Museum and Queens Theater, Citifield, Tennis Stadium and Queens Botanical Gardens, all supported by developers, should contribute to Flushing Meadows.
Why go after the mayor? He has wide support in city council - take a look at the liberal caucus and its head - our own Jimmy Van Bramer who is treated like the second coming of Christ in the local media.
Is he not the mayor's boy as head of the Democratic Delegation on council?
How far do you think the mayor will get without the council's support.
Nowhere.
If you want to stop the mayor, go after city council and their toadies that report nothing but wooonndderfuull things these very common and very flawed people do.
But wait: there's a regulation prohibiting adults from entering playgrounds unless accompanied by a child. Where is this year-round equipment for all ages going? -never mind; it'll all be in Manhattan and select areas of Brooklyn.
I think developers should be required to add to the neighborhood - schools, libraries, parks - specific tbd by community.
Cynthia Nixon....I just want to vomit.
I think the lesson to be learned here is if you dole out $10,000 to a lobbyist to court DeBlasio's wife (as Mr. Argento did), you WILL get a seat on the Mayor's fund. Character does not count. I wonder how much $$$ was outlaid by the rest of these folks?
What's wrong with 'generation gentrification' JQ? Isn't that just young people moving into new areas just like every generation has done before them?
Use their funds to build a prison. Then lock them all in it and throw away the key.
That Van Bramer is a piece of work.
these young people are stupid and spineless,willing to wait hours for food and to pay exorbitant rents to live in a hot locality.
this generation is different and its the worst ever.that is what is wrong with them.They need to be stigmatized,as with that mayors board of advisors.
and why do they need 57 advisors anyway.how big is the table when they get together.it must look like skull and bones.Its more of a cocktail party than an organization to improve parks.
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