The Blaz allocates 40 million dollars for his backyard park

 

Gothamist 

The Prospect Park Alliance and Mayor Bill de Blasio are announcing today that the city will allocate $40 million in the city budget to Prospect Park. This is the largest single allocation of funding from the city in the park's history and will be used to make much-needed upgrades and restorations in its northeast corner, known as the Vale. 

“Prospect Park is Brooklyn’s backyard,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement to Gothamist. “It’s where I got married and raised my family, and where New Yorkers of all backgrounds come to spend time in nature. This historic $40 million in funding will ensure the Vale is restored to its full glory.”

The Vale covers 27-acres and is located in the park’s northeastern edge bordering on Flatbush Avenue. Once construction begins, the hope is they won't have to close off the entire area. And while the work will not be completed until 2025 at the earliest, the planning has already begun.

There will be a restoration of the Children's Pool in the Lower Vale, a landmarked landscape built in the 1890s that has since fallen into a state of disrepair. And the Upper Vale (which was formerly the Rose Garden) will include three major new landscapes: a sensory garden/rustic arbor, a nature play area, and a combined amphitheater and community building.

 

The Blaz walks while city plans and services get burned

 

NY Post

 The coronavirus is still gripping the city, a fiscal meltdown looms and New York has been rocked this year by civil unrest, but instead of stepping up, Mayor Bill de Blasio has been stepping out.

Hizzoner has taken to regularly walking off the job — literally — in the middle of his workday for meandering, sometimes hour-plus jaunts, generally in his old Brooklyn neighborhood, while the city remains in crisis, The Post has learned.

The mayor’s latest regimen of distractions — which comes after he temporarily swore off his well-documented Park Slope YMCA workouts when COVID-19 shut down all gyms — also includes morning constitutionals running into the start of his daily press briefings, according to city sources familiar with his routine.

“This is the height of arrogance,” said one insider, who noted that the aimless walks have been commonplace for months. “While the city is falling apart, he is … walking in the park with his head in the clouds.

“I wonder if he ever heard of Nero,” the source added, referring to the Roman emperor said to have fiddled while his city burned.

 THE CITY

A city Health Department annual report providing crucial insight into maternal deaths and health complications.

An update on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s five-year plan to combat homelessness.

Required biannual statistics on allegations of sexual assault against visitors to city jails and investigations of sexual abuse in local lockups.

These are among dozens of required statistical reports produced by city agencies that have failed to surface by recent deadlines, as flagged by the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS).

The missing include periodic reports from the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Department of Homeless Services, Department of Corrections — and virtually every other city agency.

They also include the first progress report on de Blasio’s sweeping, self-proclaimed Green New Deal.

City Hall officials blamed the delays on the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic — including constraints brought on by remote work, layoffs and hiring freezes.

“Our city agencies have heroically worked to balance the urgent demands of the pandemic with non-COVID projects,” Avery Cohen, a de Blasio spokesperson, said in a statement on behalf of the mayor and the agencies. “In the interest of complete transparency, all agencies have been reminded to submit pending reports as soon as possible.”

The way he's eluding the press and also his job, The Blaz seems to be evolving (or devolving) into an urban Sasquatch. Or a Snuffleluffagus

De Blasio goes full Bloomberg for a day

From Patch:

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who billed himself during the election as a champion for the poor and an absolute anti-Bloomberg, was escorted either to or from Prospect Park early Friday evening by a helicopter belonging to the New York City Police Department, the department confirmed to Patch.

Witnesses were confused to see a police helicopter landing in a baseball field near the southwest end of the park, just after 5 p.m.:

Nypd helicopter in prospect park 🤔 pic.twitter.com/aQFQb08lBy

— Alexandra DiPalma (@LSDiPalma) October 14, 2016

An NYPD spokeswoman said she didn't know why de Blasio was traveling in an NYPD helicopter Friday. The mayor's press office did not immediately return a request for comment.

City caught being greedy

@ReuvenBlau @winsjuliet First three taken on 5/29. The last earlier in May. Each booted car=$300. 4-8 cars a day=$$ pic.twitter.com/lgxtDzCxtd

— Martha Hyde (@StrideHyde) June 5, 2015

From CBS:

Four parking spaces near Prospect Park in Brooklyn have already been described as a lucrative ticket trap, and now, motorists say authorities have taken it all a step further – booting and towing cars.

Last month, 1010 WINS’ Juliet Papa reported on the four spaces at Prospect Park West and 9th Street.

Two signs are mounted overhead, and the bottom sign allows motorists to park there after 1 p.m. But the top sign says, “No standing April 1 to Sept. 30.”

On Sunday, the New York Daily News reported that the city will replace the signs and allow parking year-round in the four spaces. But two days before that, someone tweeted 1010 WINS’ Papa showing cars at the site had been outfitted with the Denver boot.

Police on Friday could not explain why cars would be booted rather than just ticketed.

The Department of Transportation said the signs will be changed next week.

Federal and state funds used to fund luxury high rise

Public-private partnerships hurt the general public

From the NY Times:

The Central Park Conservancy manages $220 million in assets, and has four officials who make more money than the city parks commissioner, Veronica M. White. At a High Line fund-raiser, a host held aloft a million-dollar check and asked for a match. Another $1 million check was written on the spot.

At the other end of this spectrum, the cracked path around the Shore Park-Verrazano Narrows offers an exercise in horizontal mountain biking. At Flushing Meadows-Corona Park children play in dry wading pools and lake paths are unnavigable without machetes.

Prospect Park occupies a middle ground. It has overseen a stunningly beautiful reconstruction of its lake side. It also rents out its Audubon Center on weekends to the wedding-bar mitzvah-birthday crowd.

Our lame duck mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, has started to turn off his charitable money shower. His foundation informed the Prospect Park Alliance that it intended to end its quarter-million dollar annual contribution. (Ms. Lloyd declined to discuss this.)

Those who defend privatization are candid. Ask about inequity and they talk of commodities; the emerald brilliance of Central Park draws tourists. The High Line is a brooch in the luxury transformation of Chelsea.

As for Flushing Meadows? When told that partisans hoped to transform a homely asphalt-ringed fountain into a grass-edged lake, John Alschuler Jr., co-chairman of the Friends of the High Line, offered an exasperated sigh. In his day job, he lobbies to place a U.F.O.-size professional soccer stadium in the midst of that Queens park.

Cities, he said, no longer pay for parks properly. Such exuberant hopes will not be realized in my life, he said, or that of my child. Find a corporate sponsor, he suggested.

So condescension passes as realism.

Holly Leicht of New Yorkers for Parks is a vigorous parks advocate, and would demand transparency and accountability from conservancies. But she would not upset the conservancy lords until the Parks Department is properly financed and revamped.

This feels backward. Former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton transformed a hidebound Police Department in months; why demand less of the Parks Department?

Pedestrian in coma after bike accident

From A Walk in the Park:

A 55-year-old woman out for a walk was struck by a bicyclist and seriously hurt last Thursday in Prospect Park. She was brought to Kings County Hospital where she was put into a medically induced coma, A Walk In the Park has learned.

Brooklyn resident and avid power-walker Linda Cohen was hit by a speeding bike on November 3rd at approximately 2:50pm when she stepped onto the West Drive, according to sources.

The accident occurred near on the drive near the Vanderbilt St. Playground opposite the Well(house) drive junction with Lake Drive. The area is the steepest grade of the park drives that goes down for a 1/4 mile. A source said she was hit by bike racer.

The cyclist remained at the scene.

A number of bike accidents in the park have recently been reported. Park goers have long advocated for greater enforcement of speeding bicyclists.

Ms. Cohen remains sedated and in an induced coma. She is a long-time and beloved volunteer in the park.

Dirtbags hunting wildlife in Prospect Park

From The Brooklyn Paper:

Cops have busted a group of oddball poachers in Prospect Park — a band of vagrants that was trapping and eating ducks, squirrels and pigeons.

Parks officers wrote four tickets — two for killing wildlife and two for illegal fishing — totaling $2,100 in fines during a two-day period last week.

The city would not immediately release details of the incidents, which occurred on July 17 and 18 — just days after park-goers told rangers about a “Beverly Hillbillies”-like scene on the southeast side of the lake, near the ice skating rink.
BoroDeal

The disheveled — and possibly homeless — tribe in question uses “makeshift” fishing poles and traps to catch the critters, then grills them over the fire, according to park watchdogs.

Lesson learned?

From The Brooklyn Paper:

Goose census takers are finishing up the federal government’s official count of waterfowl in Brooklyn — but the would-be bird exterminators aren’t likely to fire up their gas chambers again this year because the population of local geese has already plummeted.

This week, only 23 geese were spotted in Prospect Park — where more than 300 Canada geese were slaughtered by the federal government in the name of aviation security last July.

The decreased population is a result of a multi-faceted and non-lethal approach to animal control after the outcry over last year’s massacre. Park biologists have covered eggs in corn oil to prevent their development, brought in dogs to chase geese away, and enforced a strict “no feeding” policy.

As a result, Park officials say that no goslings have been born this season, and many geese have moved on.
BoroDeal

Of course, the goose population was greatly reduced by the slaughter itself.

Violent measures may not be needed this year because of the success of humane efforts to keep the goose population down. In the passed two months, biologists have combed nearly every inch of Prospect Park, tracking mated pairs of geese back to their nests, where the eggs have been coated with corn oil to suffocate the embryos before development. This prevents goslings from hatching in the weeks before the season in which officials can legally exterminate them.

Along with this “egg addling” technique, the Park has hiring a company called “Goose Busters,” which uses border collies to scare away the squawkers.

So what does this tell us?

1) The geese in our local parks don't go anywhere. They eat and reproduce in the parks. They aren't circling over JFK or flying to heights that would strike aircraft.
2) We are wasting a lot of money rounding up these geese for slaughter since migratory geese and other species of birds are mainly responsible for air strikes.
3) We can humanely control the population of geese.

Prospect Park employs humane goose control measures

From the NY Times:

Dogs of every breed come to Prospect Park and bother the geese, but only Cleo, a black and white Border collie, is paid to do it. Her job is to save the geese by tormenting them.

Last year, federal authorities killed nearly 370 Prospect Park geese, mainly to keep them from hitting airplanes. Now, with that slaughter fresh in the minds of many people in Brooklyn, park officials have brought in Cleo to help avoid a repeat.

Cleo will patrol the lakeshore to chase the geese from land and ride a kayak to chase them from water. She will vary her activity to shake the rhythm of the geese, and she will receive help from two collie colleagues, Spanky and Samantha.

If Cleo’s constant harassment succeeds in keeping most of the geese away, Prospect Park officials hope the federal agents in charge of the culling will pass them by.

“We would really like to keep the number down low enough so this is not a target area,” said Emily Lloyd, president of the Prospect Park Alliance, the nonprofit group that helps run the park.

Her organization hired Cleo’s owners, Goose Busters, a company based in Virginia that has worked extensively in the New York region, at $725 a week for about eight weeks, or until molting season begins.

Since Queens has no such group like Prospect Park Alliance, our geese will be gassed. But at least we're vibrant and diverse!

Snow means trouble for bubbles

From A Walk in the Park:

Three tennis bubbles located in City parks collapsed under the weight of snow from the storm that blanked the area on Monday.

One bubble, housing five courts at the controversial $ 19 million dollar Sportime Randall's Island caved in. Workers were seen removing snow by a small front-end loader and clearing away debris. Personnel were also seen reviewing blue prints of the bubbles.

The facility is home to the John McEnroe Tennis Academy for Elite players and is managed by John's brother Mark. The enormous project was ushered through by the Randall's Island Sports Foundation and bypassed ULURP and appropriate environmental reviews.

All indoor tennis in Prospect Park in Brooklyn were suspended after its two bubbles at the Prospect Park Tennis Center collapsed Monday.

"The Prospect Park Tennis Center is currently closed," a message on the Prospect Park Alliance tennis center voice mail says. "Both bubbles collapsed due to heavy snow. We are making a concerted effort to remove the snow and re-inflate the bubbles. We plan to be open on Sunday, January 2nd."

A message on the website stated: "The severe storm conditions caused the Tennis Center bubbles to come down. The Tennis Center may be closed for the week. Please check our website or give the Center a call at (718) 436 2500 for updates.

Bloomberg compares Atlantic Yards boondoggle to Central Park

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg, normally a hard-nosed businessman, turns misty-eyed when he talks about plans like Atlantic Yards that reshape the city he runs.

He likes to bring up Central Park, pointing out that nobody lounging in Manhattan's gem today cares whether it was finished on time or on budget a century ago.

"I don't know what the IBO studies would have shown back when they tried to establish the value of Central Park or Prospect Park or anything else," he said last year. "These are the kinds of projects you have to do because without that, we don't have a future."

Comparing Atlantic Yards to Central Park? Now there's a stretch... Doesn't look like you are going to be able to play frisbee or baseball on the plaza outside the Nets arena.

The City has $40M to pour into an arena that no one except a developer really feels is necessary, but doesn't have a few million laying around for infrastructure projects that have no "value" in communities that have been deluged by overdevelopment? Sewers, green space, etc.? So, by our genius mayor's reasoning, those areas don't have a future. Well it looks like we do agree on some things!

Photo from Chaz's School Daze

Bloomberg responsible for unnecessary goose slaughter

From the NY Times:

Five weeks after wildlife authorities rounded up Prospect Park’s geese and gassed them, provoking the ire of residents and wildlife advocates alike, legions of new, death-defying geese continue to move into the prime real estate that is Prospect Park Lake.

Anne-Katrin Titze and Ed Bahlman, Brooklyn residents who discovered the birds’ disappearance last month, counted 107 geese on Prospect Park Lake on Sunday. “They are clearly replacing the ones that were killed,” Ms. Titze said, although she lamented that some had already fallen prey to barbed lures and fishing line that were left in the lake.

The 107 geese have their flight feathers, Ms. Titze noted, and were slowly learning the ways of the park.

From the Courier-Life:

Federal Wildlife Services: How far outside the airport?

U.S. Department of Agriculture: A five-mile radius is sensible, not further than five miles.

Kim Wagner of Wildlife Services: Geese will be hardest to control in parks. [There is] an emotional issue. [We] need to know how to handle [it].

Department of Environmental Protection: According to the Federal Aviation Administration in previous … meetings, five miles is just a number. The liability issue can extend 30 miles [and] influence any large area.

USDA: No additional studies will occur. … [We] need to pick a distance.

DEP: [Can we] put to rest the five-mile limit? [We are] not satisfied.

Port Authority of NY and NJ: Five miles is a huge area to manage.

Jamaica Bay representative: Five miles is good.

And also from Courier-Life:

The blood is on the city’s hands.

New documents revealed this week that city officials pushed for a “no-fly zone” for geese far wider than a five-mile radius from airports suggested by federal officials — even discussing the need for a 30-mile kill zone.

The minutes from the Nov. 15, 2006, meeting of the Bird Hazard Task Force — the team that would later approve the controversial, middle-of-the-night massacre of geese in Prospect Park this summer — reveal a vigorous debate among various city, state and federal agencies about just how far they would go to ensure that airplanes would not collide with geese.

“A five-mile radius is sensible, not further than five miles,” a representative from the U.S. Department of Agriculture said at the meeting, according to the minutes, which we obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request. The minutes typically only provide the name of the agency speaking during the conversation, not the speaker.

But then a representative of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection said that a five-mile radius is simply not adequate.

“Five miles is just a number,” the representative said. “The liability issue can extend 30 miles.”

Later, the speaker added, “[Can we] put to rest the five-mile limit? [We’re] not satisfied.”

The minutes reveal that even prior to the so-called Miracle on the Hudson splash landing on the Hudson River last year, the city wanted to kill far more geese than other government agencies sought.

Turtle traps found in Prospect Park lake

From The Brooklyn Paper:

Turtles better hide in their shells — it appears someone is poaching the precious creatures from the lake in Prospect Park!

Two regular parkgoers, Anne-Katrin Titze and Ed Bahlman, discovered the shocking trap in the water last Tuesday while cleaning the area around the nest of one of their beloved swans.

The trap, which is slightly bigger than a shoebox, had a long line tethered to it, which was secured under a fallen tree.

Bahlman and Titze even said they found another trap the day before.

But park officials were hesitant to declare the traps a clear sign of poaching.

“I can’t say [if that is] a turtle trap or what kind of trap it is or what animals someone was trying to trap with it,” said Eugene Patron, a spokesman for the Prospect Park Alliance, who was shown a photograph of the apparent trap. But regardless, he added, “Trapping or capturing of wildlife is absolutely prohibited.”

It is hard to imagine what other purpose the trap could have served. The basket is not meant to capture fish, and the area where it was found is preferred among turtles, which bask on the many fallen trees on the edge of the lake.

The Daily News reported the following:

Forget the Gowanus Canal: Prospect Park's lake needs a federal cleanup - stat.

The Brooklyn lake is brimming with garbage like charcoal briquets tossed after cookouts, plastic bags and discarded fishing lines - including one that strangled a baby swan last week.

"Some parts of it are just terrible," said frequent visitor Oleg Priymak, 54, a Windsor Terrace videographer. "I've never seen anyone going around to patrol it."

Hidden among the reeds on shore are remnants of camps made by homeless people. Food wrappers, toilet paper and human waste lurk underfoot.

"This is the reality lakeside tour," said Ed Bahlman, 60, a retired engineer from Windsor Terrace. "This is what the park doesn't want you to see."

A walk around the 60-acre lake also turned up picnic trash, old clothing, beer bottles and a trap, possibly for turtles.

His life was hanging by a thread

From Citybirder:

As we entered the Lullwater path, just beyond the Nethermead Meadow, I noticed something small and brown hanging from a Locust tree, over the edge of the water. I thought, "Great, another bird caught in monofilament." Fisherman in the park frequently get their lines tangled in trees or shrubs and don't clean it up. I've posted a few stories about rescuing birds that get stuck in these unintentional traps, but what I saw this morning made me both angry and upset. A length of fishing line with a small hook on the end was hanging from the tree with a Little Brown Bat snared by his thin, tail membrane.

Doug was in a hurry, so left me alone to figure out how to rescue the bat. I called wildlife rescuers Bobby and Cathy Horvath, but got their voicemail. Out of desperation I called the city's 311 line. After a 15 minute conversation where the operator filled out official forms for submission to the "proper agency", I realized that nobody was going to come to this animal's rescue.

Click the link to see what happened next.

Moral of the story: Enjoy the city's parks, but don't be a careless asshole. You're not the only animal that uses them.

Serial animal killer in Prospect Park

From the Brooklyn Paper:

On Friday morning, Anne-Katrin Titze and Ed Bahlman’s discovered a chicken neck and head — disembodied! — on their daily walk.

Nearby, Bahlman found a large box with two latex gloves inside. Beside the box were feathers — likely from the chicken — strewn about the banks of the lake.

Hours later, the horror show in Brooklyn’s most beloved park took an extreme turn.

Bahlman’s friend, Bonita Makuch, came upon entrails piled on the edge of Prospect Park lake. Some of the guts had fallen into the water — pieces of viscera were peaking out like fleshy glaciers. A chicken’s carcass floated nearby.

“It was quite disgusting,” said Makuch, who was unsure if all the tripe belonged to only chickens. “With a pile that big, it seems to me you’d have to do a lot of killing to get that many guts.”

Susan Yuen, who first came upon a similar revolting crime scene in the same area along Prospect Park southwest last week, saw the intestines in the early afternoon and immediately alerted park officials. A park employee — who would not give his name — quickly cleaned up the mess, pulling two chicken carcasses out of the water and throwing it all in a trash bag.

The incident marks the second gore-fest at Prospect Park in two weeks. Last week, The Brooklyn Paper delved into the mind-bending mystery of a bloody chopping block, smashed turtle shells, and an arson — all of which appear to have been related.

I like the Parks Dept's response:

"Unless someone catches someone in the act of either abusing an animal or littering — which this gory stuff is — there is little we can do."

SO CATCH THEM JACKASS. Do you know what a stakeout is?

Woodstock 2009 in the works for Brooklyn

From NY1:

Brooklyn's Prospect park is in the running to become the official site for the 40th anniversary of the original Woodstock concert.

The Parks Department says it's been in talks with promoter Michael Lang to bring the show to Prospect Park this summer.

The hope is to attract 150,000 people, with headliners from the original show along with newer acts like Dave Matthews and Phish.

The show would be free, but Lang would have to raise $8 million to $10 million to put it on, and the financing needs to be in place by the end of the month.


Hey, anyone remember Woodstock '99?

After some time, a large force of New York State Troopers, local police, and various other law enforcement showed up. Most had crowd control gear and proceeded to form a riot-line that flushed the crowd to the northwest, away from the stage located at the eastern end of the airfield. Few in the crowd offered strong resistance and they quickly dispersed back toward the campground and out the main entrance.

Police later reported that at least four rapes had occurred during the concert. Seven arrests were made on the final night of the concert and, afterward, police reviewed video footage, hoping to identify and hold accountable looters who, amid the chaos, had not been arrested. Some one-dozen trailers, a small bus and a number of booths and portable toilets were burned in the fray. Six people were injured.