Charles Park needs some NPS love

Frank Charles Park in Howard Beach is part of the Gateway Recreation Area and controlled by the National Park Service. The original idea was that people who might not afford a trip to a National Park would be able to just a short trip away. NPS controls thousands of acres of parkland in Brooklyn,Queens, Staten Island and Sandy Hook NJ. They are a tremendous asset to the city and as our city grows our parkland will be more precious.

In the past any problems at Gateway was usually met with "we are understaffed and under funded". Unlike NYC there is no 311 to call with problems,you can write them or leave a message and you might not get a response as is my case.

I've even wrote letters to local papers about the conditions of Charles Park and nothing is done. The condition of dead trees and dead limbs has existed for years and what would seem like a safety priority, isn't.

Recently a woman and her kids were clobbered by a branch in Central Park and the tree looked healthy and she's suing the city for $225 million. This is a cost effective measure for NPS, just hire a tree cutter now,this is an emergency situation.

My other gripe is that the bathroom which has just one bowl for men and one for women. This park has a children's play ground, tennis courts, ball fields, picnic tables and a beach, one bowl doesn't cut it.

Thanks Rich

Religious ritual is bad for the environment

"Hi Crappy, this is what goes on in Jamaica Bay at Frank Charles park in Howard Beach and the parking area on the south side of the Joseph Addabbo Bridge.This land is under National Park Service control and they claim they can't stop it because it's a freedom of religion issue.They dump into the water all kinds of fruits, vegetables,flowers,and food.On land they also leave behind statues,pictures and reams of cloth flags.

There is supposed to be an ecology minded group within the Hindu community that has been discouraging this practice and they say they do a cleanup once a month but I have never seen them at Charles Park. Last week I saw NPS clean the beach with a four man crew, they say they come every Sunday.

I think if NPS is going to allow this the they should clean the beach more often, nobody being on a beach with rotten fruit and it is bad for the health of the water and the animals that need a healthy environment to live." - Rich

Now you can rent a "luxury tent" at Fort Tilden

Just when you thought you'd seen everything, "glamping" at a national park happens.

Park Service looking to refurbish Jacob Riis Bathhouse

From CBS 2:

With colder weather and the holidays upon us, you may not be thinking about your summer beach plans.

But as CBS2’s Brian Conybeare reported, the National Park Service is.

In fact, the agency is trying to restore the historic bathhouse on Rockaway Beach with the help of private investors.

The iconic bathhouse at Jacob Riis Park in Queens has been virtually abandoned for decades. Built in 1932, the art deco pavilion was a popular summer destination for New York’s working poor and immigrants – with restaurants, a surf shop, and a mile-long white sand beach.

But time, neglect, and storms took their toll.

The Park Service is now looking for bidders to reopen parts of the bathhouse with dining, concessions, arts, and an event space for next summer. But the second floor, which housed a Howard Johnson’s hotel in the 1960s, will obviously take much longer.

The second floor now looks like modern-day ruins, with crumbling ceilings and rotting bathrooms.

Kinkajou captured

From the Queens Chronicle:

The kinkajou that had been spotted in a tree in Broad Channel near the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge Center was caught on Wednesday and is under the care of the Animal Care & Control of NYC, according to a National Parks Service spokeswoman.

An email forwarded to the Queens Chronicle from a member of Northeastbirding.com states that the tropical critter had wandered away from the tree it called home for close to a week and was found just south of the visitors' center.

"It was asleep when found, so the capture was easy," the email reads.

An NPS spokeswoman later confirmed the animal's capture and added that it was handed over to the city's animal control unit.

Charles Park needs regular cleanup

Hi "Crappie, last week I was at Charles Park in Howard Beach and I saw a group of about 10 National Park Service workers with clip boards and cameras looking over the park. I was on the beach doing a cleanup of trash and they called me over to chat and take my picture. I proceeded to complain about all the trash and debris that accumulates on the beach and that there is no one who's job it is to keep it clean. Only for one summer they had a worker that would clean the beach each day but after Hurricane Sandy he was reassigned to the Jamaica Bay Nature Refuge.

I was told by one of the officials that they are looking for volunteer coordinator's to organize the community and would I like to be that person. I told them the job shouldn't be left to volunteers and that it should be the job of the NPS to keep the park clean. He said that there was nothing in the budget to hire a worker.

I then asked him that the NPS and NYC Park's was supposed to join up and help each other out with all the parkland NPS has and he said NYC Park's can't help they have more than they can handle. He also said many parks even Central Park depends on volunteers to help keep it clean.

My thoughts are that here in the USA there are many people out of work and we are spending billions on all kinds of projects and sending billions of dollars all over the world to nations that hate us and we can't even afford to clean a park in an affluent neighborhood like Howard Beach where families come to rest and relax.

Each day the tides bring in trash from boaters and what winds up in the sewage system. Each day fruits, vegetables and food is washed up from Hindu religious ceremonies. Each day people who fish and party leave behind beer bottles and trash. Just as the NPS has to clean the bathrooms and sweep the playground and empty the litter baskets they must clean the beach. Some of the debris on the beach includes sections of heavy boards from docks and have nails and bolts sticking out. They are a hazard for beach goers and to boaters if the debris is washed out with the tide.

I personally don't like to sit and see trash so I always like to cleanup my area and have taught my children to leave a park a little cleaner than you found it but this is a big dirty job that shouldn't be left to a few volunteers that will do periodic cleanups." - Rich

Petition to clean up Charles Park

From the Queens Chronicle:

Having Charles Park Beach so close to her house was a major selling point when Debra Ann DiMeglio moved to Howard Beach in January.

But all wasn’t as it seemed. She quickly became disappointed to see how many people were throwing their garbage on the beach and its surrounding park — a longtime problem in the area, according to residents.

“It’s just terrible what’s going on there,” DiMeglio said. “It doesn’t give a good face to the community.”

Now, she and her sister are on a mission to get the National Parks Service to improve the maintenance of the federal parkland — and their cries are backed by close to 250 people who so far have signed onto a petition in want of a cleaner park.

“The whole park needs to be cleaned up. This should not be,” DiMeglio said.

In an online petition at Change.org, DiMeglio and her sister Sheri say Charles Park, located at 9600 165 Ave., “was once a beautiful park, where residents would enjoy their visits and the beautiful view.”

They couldn’t say the same for today.

“The beaches are horrendous,” DiMeglio said. “When I walk around I’m seeing all the debris and dirt and people barbecuing. There’s barbecue charcoal everywhere.”

She’s not alone in that assessment.

“The park looks like a junkyard,” Steven Sirgiovanni said. “I wouldn’t want to have a kid or a dog going in there.”

Meng gets bill passed that might fund historic sites

From the Times Ledger:

U.S. Rep Grace Meng’s (D-Flushing) bill to study the viability of the National Park Service supporting Queens historic sites associated with the signing of the Flushing Remonstrance passed the Senate last Friday night.

The Flushing Remonstrance Study Act would require the secretary of the Interior, who oversees federal parkland, to consider the possibility of giving Flushing sites, such as the John Bowne House and the Old Quaker Meetinghouse, support from the National Park Service.

The bill passed the House 20th century in September. If President Barack Obama signs the bill, the National Park Service will be able to look at whether the sites meet the requirements for national significance, suitability and feasibility.

It could also lead to the sites becoming either a national historic park or a national historic site or creating partnerships to support the facilities.

While this sounds like something positive on its face, the reality is that the National Parks budget is frequently subject to budget cuts, and more often it's the local governments that have to step up with funding to save national parks than the other way around.

Resorts World fixing up playground

From The Forum:

Roger Gendron of the New Hamilton Beach Civic Association could barely contain his excitement when announcing the news at last Thursday’s summer meeting. After years of waiting, his community was finally going to see change at its old, decrepit playground by September and nearby Resorts World agreed to pick up the tab.

"This is really going to go a long way to help this community,” he said. “It’s not just damage from [Hurricane] Sandy. It’s the graffiti that’s out there, too. It’s an eyesore.”

Since Superstorm Sandy swept through the northeast in 2012, the playground at the end of Hamilton Beach has sat in disrepair and disarray. Chipped paint, graffiti, and overturned flooring were only the beginning of the laundry list of things desperately waiting for a fresh start.

And despite the community’s best efforts to get its hands on funding to fix the area, bureaucratic battles between the National Parks Service and city agencies kept the Hamilton Beach playground renovations in flux.

But that all changed when Michelle Stoddart, public relations director for Resorts World Casino, delivered a mockup of the new $40,000 playground to Hamilton Beach residents at last week’s civic meeting showcasing fresh fire engine red slides and a blue and yellow exterior.

“A lot of our staff live in this community and are from this community. We thought it would be a good idea to help,” she said. “This is something we are very excited to get involved with and look forward to seeing it finished.”

Stoddart said Resorts World would be teaming up with Pavers and Road Builders Local 1010 as well as the National Parks Service to reconstruct the playground. The entire deal, she said, was also made possible because of borough elected officials helping grease the wheels.

Concern about gas pipeline under Rockaway

From WPIX:

Every night, a group of Rockaway residents watches with fear and worry as work is underway out at sea for the little publicized Rockaway Lateral Project Pipeline.

“It’s doesn’t matter if it’s on federal property,” Sandra Schunk told PIX11. ” It’s still our beach, our lives.”

Residents say the pipeline has gotten little attention because it’s mostly on federal property, the Gateway National Recreational Area.

It will eventually bring 647,000 dekartherms per day of fracked natural gas from the Marcellus Shale under high-pressure, beneath the beach, under a golf course, under the Marine Parkway bridge, through Floyd Bennett Field and eventually to distribution lines of Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

Community board member John Gaska told PIX11, “The board approved the pipeline. We have concerns about safety but it’s a positive for the community. Gas will be cheaper.”

When I saw the title of the video, "Queens residents fighting construction of Rockaway Pipeline", I thought I was going to read about an actual fight, but instead this report was just about a bunch of folks who are concerned but not doing much of anything about it. Oh well.

Jamaica Bay, Gateway plans to be unveiled

From The Forum:

The National Park Service has released its final general management plan and environmental impact statement for Gateway National Recreational Area, which includes such areas as Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and Howard Beach’s Charles Park, and announced it is backing a plan that includes a variety of recreational activities in South Queens, including hiking trails, bicycles infrastructure, and camping.

The recommendation follows four years of federal parks representatives working with area civic leaders, elected officials, and residents. The public now has a little less than 30 days to read the final proposal, which is almost certain to become greenlighted within the month.

While the adoption of the plan is most certainly a reality, the implementation of it is not, area residents stressed, noting that many of the proposals put forth in the National Park Service’s general management plan from more than 30 years ago never came to fruition.

Still, Gateway National Recreation Area Superintendent Jennifer Nersesian wrote in a letter to the community that NPS hopes to see much, if not all, of the plan become a reality, sooner or later.

“As the life of this GMP is expected to be 20 years, it may be many years before some of the projects in this plan are funded and implemented,” she wrote.

Among the initiatives detailed in the plan are such “improved amenities and recreation facilities” as trails and campsites, more community-based recreation such as sports leagues and event spaces, environmental educational programming, development of water trails, and expansion of beach access.

Residents will have a chance to learn more about the type of public use being proposed for Gateway National Park at the next Jamaica Bay Greenway Coalition meeting, which is scheduled for Saturday, May 17 at 10:30 a.m. at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

Hindus clean up Jamaica Bay

From the Forum:

Bundled up in coats protecting them from the still-cold spring, the volunteers – young and old, from Queens and throughout the city – spread out across the beach at Jamaica Bay Sunday afternoon, picking up items scattered across the sand that, to those who left them there as religious offerings, represented beauty and prosperity and renewal. Once lovingly handled by worshipers on the South Queens coastline, colorful statues of such Hindu gods and goddesses as Vishnu, Lakshmi, and Ganesha line the sand in a less perfect form than they once were – their plastic shoulders chipped, their painted facades water-worn.

Spending a couple hours on the shore where many Hindus – especially those from nearby Richmond Hill, Ozone Park, and South Park – go to pray, the volunteers comb the beach for items that worshipers take to Jamaica Bay because it has become an adoptive Ganges River – the spot in India where the water is perceived as sacred and where people will take religious items to be blessed. But, because Jamaica Bay has become such a draw, the coastline has also become increasingly littered with religious items that were put in the water but wash back onto the shore, alarming area park workers and environmentalists who worry what the non-biodegradable goods doing to an ecosystem home to many species of wildlife.

“We like to put offerings in the water, but, when this practice began in the olden days, those offerings were biodegradable – flowers and fruits; it wasn’t the styrofoam and bottles of today,” said Sunita Viswanath, a co-founder of the all-volunteer group called Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus.

That is why Viswanath and the group’s two other co-founders, Aminta Kilawan and Rohan Narine, launched, along with the U.S. National Park Service, a monthly cleanup program, which began Sunday, at Jamaica Bay. Known as “Project Prithvi,” the initiative continues the work that others in the Hindu community have done to pick up the religious items from the shoreline. Additionally, as part of Sadhana’s work, the co-founders said they are going to different Hindu temples to speak to religious leaders and worshipers about the importance of respecting the environment – a message they said has been well received because it is so core to the beliefs of Hinduism.

“When we show community members the damaged, broken idols that we have collected at the beach, that really gets a reaction,” Viswanath said. “They stop in their tracks and say, ‘Wow, we shouldn’t be doing that.’”

Charles Park finally cleaned

From the Queens Courier:

Frank M. Charles Memorial Park is getting spruced up.

With Sandy debris lingering nearly six months after the storm, Councilmember Eric Ulrich has partnered with the Doe Fund to help clean up the community park, which is run under the auspices of by Gateway National Recreation Area.

Nine “men in blue” from the Doe Fund, which finds work for homeless men and women, will help remove debris in what is considered a neighborhood park, although it’s under the National Park Service (NPS) umbrella.

Ulrich said he reached out to George McDonald, president and founder of the Doe Fund, after coverage of the park’s worsened condition following the storm.

“This was a reaction to the published newspaper reports about the terrible conditions in Charles Park,” Ulrich said.

The councilmember said further pressure had to be put on NPS to secure that Charles Park and other parts of Gateway get the same attention that parks across the country do.

No time like the present to clean up Charles Park

From the Queens Courier:

Howard Beach residents just want their park cleaned up.

Before plans Frank M. Charles Memorial Park are made, Community Board 10 wants the joint effort between the NYC Parks Department and Gateway National Recreation Area to get more local input.

Board members on Thursday, April 4 unanimously voted on a resolution to ask the coalition to remove Charles Park from consideration in the development of Jamaica Bay until further measures are taken.

“That park is in deplorable condition. It has been in deplorable condition for years,” Board chair Elizabeth Braton told a Parks representative. “When the City of New York entered in this agreement where the Parks Department would be allowed to go into Gateway and do some things, it was not the expectation of the local community that the first thing the Parks Department would do is engage in a revenue-making operation there.”

Parks and Gateway, which is an arm of the National Park Service, formed an agreement last summer to help drive more tourism to Jamaica Bay. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) were released last month for developers to create bike terminals, kayak launching areas or food concession stands.

Ellis Island still reeling from Sandy

Sad state of Riis Bathhouse

From the NY Times:

With its octagonal brick towers rising above the beach, the sprawling bathhouse at Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways has, since opening in 1932, served as a monument to Art Deco design, grand public works and populist fun. Lately, however, it has become a symbol of something else: public frustration.

Renovation work began in the 1990s on the bathhouse, which is part of the federal Gateway National Recreation Area. Nearly $20 million was spent on asbestos removal, electrical upgrades, window replacements, new elevators and facade work. Politicians predicted that the bathhouse would be a fitting centerpiece of Jacob Riis Park, which is nicknamed the People’s Beach, while beachgoers envisioned cafes and souvenir shops, hot showers and community space.

But the work was never finished, and today the 40,000-square-foot bathhouse appears all but abandoned. Its large oceanfront bays are boarded up with plywood; its giant courtyard houses piles of sand, weeds and several derelict lifeguard stands, two of them toppled over.

Officials of Gateway, which is part of the National Park Service, say that the bathhouse suffered a one-two punch. First, the money meant for the restoration did not go as far as they had planned. The bathhouse complex actually comprises four buildings; while the entry pavilion on the inland side is finished, the beach pavilion still needs major work. Then came Tropical Storm Irene, which smashed a series of large doors protecting the interior — the ones now covered in plywood — and dumped four feet of sand on the ground floor.

Is this really a good thing?

From DNA Info:

More camping sites, bike trails and enhanced boat access could be coming soon to Jamaica Bay Park, according to a new initiative signed between the city Parks Department and the National Park Service.

Under the agreement, which builds upon one signed in October last year, more than 10,000 acres of federal and city-owned park land will be merged into a “single seamless park,” said Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar.

The initiative will also help fund research that can continue to help preserve the area's fragile ecology, authorities said.

The park houses almost 300 species of birds, including some that are endangered, and has been under threat because of its proximity to JFK Airport and raw sewage discharge.

The land covered by the agreement is part of the 27,000 acre Gateway National Recreation Area.

A new “friends” group, similar to the ones in Central Park and Prospect Park, will also be formed to help plan and raise funds for the park, authorities added.

The public has also been invited to chip in with their ideas on how to make the Jamaica Bay Park better under the joint management.

Of course, because when one thinks of management excellence, the NYC Parks Dept comes to mind...

Trashy National Park

From the Queens Courier:

Piles of trash in tall grass are just yards away from baseball fields where the pitcher’s mounds have nearly leveled with home plate. Behind home plate, there are cracks in the sidewalks that are overgrown with grass and weeds. Not much further from this scene is a picnic table, worn from years of use.

These are just some of the images of Frank M. Charles Memorial Park in Howard Beach, which officials and residents say has been neglected for years by the National Park Service (NPS).

Assemblymember Philip Goldfeder and Senator Charles Schumer recently sent a letter to NPS with concerns about upkeep of the park that residents claim has been inconsistent and underfunded for years.

NPS approves outdoor studio

From the NY Post:

The National Parks Service yesterday approved construction plans for the city’s first outdoor movie lot at Astoria-Kaufman Studios in Queens.

Federal red tape threatened to delay the $2 million project that is expected to open by the summer of 2013 and will help attract even more film projects to the city.

“We finally say ‘Action!’ ” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who had urged the agency to act.

“With the National Parks Service sign-off, the project can move forward on schedule and begin competing for major productions with places like Los Angeles and Toronto.”

The studio, which was turned over to the city decades ago, is also a national historic site.

Signs of anti-Semitism at Floyd Bennett Field

"Please excuse the informal introduction, my name is Pat Cotillo, Jr. and I am a freelance photographer. While out on a personal assignment at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn I was approached by a Jill Weingarten who works at the Floyd Bennett Field Gardens Association Inc. She asked if I would be willing to take some pictures of the recent Anti-Semitic vandalism that has occurred on their grounds. Due to all the rash of Anti-Semitic attacks I thought you may be interested in the following photos."