Results tagged “parkscommissioner”

For two weeks in the winter of 2005, Central Park was filled with 7,500 saffron-paneled gates. The project was a gift from the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who had been trying for four decades to launch the project. Their struggle - and success - comes to the the small screen with tonight's premiere of The Gates on HBO.

It may have looked like simple joyriding on a Friday afternoon, but the Parks Dept. employee careening around Battery Park near Whitehall St. yesterday afternoon was actually a man on a mission, i.e. to kill as many birds in the park as possible. Martin Hightower has been a Parks Dept. employee since 2005, but was arrested after 911 started receiving calls about a man driving recklessly on a golf cart at the southern tip of Manhattan.

An estimated three million people assembled along Broadway during yesterday's ticker tape parade to celebrate the Giants' 17-14 Super Bowl XLII win over the New England Patriots.

No one knows for sure what’s to become of the future Union Square pavilion, but a strong contender for the space – formerly occupied by the shabby Luna Park – is a new restaurant helmed by Danny Meyer, who opened the Union Square Café in ’85 and whose Shake Shack in Madison Square Park is an object of obsession.

After years of protesting renovations to it -- this evening community members will be grieving Washington Square Park, and protesting those with its blood on their hands: the Parks Commissioner, Mayor Bloomberg, and City Council Members. Yesterday we received this letter, sent out by the Open Washington Square Park Coalition.

It is with frustration and remorse that I write to inform you of a memorial service for the spirit of Washington Square Park.

Continue reading "Washington Square Park, R.I.P."

The family of late Detective Dillon Stewart was joined by Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and other city officials in the dedication of a Prospect Park playground in Stewart's honor. The Parade Ground Playground, at the corner of Caton Avenue and Parade Place, near East 16th, was renamed the Dillon Stewart Playground. Stewart was killed on November 28, 2005, when he and his partner stopped a car for a traffic violation. Someone...

There are many fun events today, like Ecofest at Lincoln Center and Atlantic Antic in Brooklyn, but for those interested in our fine feathered friends, we recommend you head to Central Park to check out the Parks Department's Falconry Extravaganza with the Urban Park Rangers.

As Park Slopers discuss the elementary school pigeon killers lurking about Prospect Park, the animals decide to strike back!

This Labor Day weekend is not just the unofficial last weekend of summer - it's the official last weekend to enjoy the city's beaches and pools. After Monday, the 14 miles of beaches and 52 outdoor pools (including the Floating Pool - which will be heading to the Bronx for the summer of 2008) will be closed.

Alley Pond Park, the second biggest park in Queens, has a new attraction: The biggest adventure ropes course in the Northeast. Last Friday, the Park Department opened up the Alley Pond Park Adventure Course, which has zip lines, a climbing wall, webs, swings, trust falls, and balance boards.

The course consists of 20 high and low elements that can be both physically and emotionally challenging and also encourages a connection with nature. The low elements take place on the ground or on cables a few feet above the ground. Many of these elements are handicap accessible and concentrate on team building and problem solving skills. High elements take place on cables suspended 45 feet in the air, require a harness and climbing rope for safety, and focus personal achievements as they may require participants to confront personal fears. The Adventure Course staff is trained in program implementation and safety techniques.

New York's own floating pool is opening tomorrow! The concept was that of Ann Buttenwieser, founder of the Neptune Foundation and a former manager of City Parks. The water on water can be found at Brooklyn Bridge Park, it's free and open from 11am to 7pm (the beach is open from 9am to 9pm) - seven days a week.

As we mentioned earlier this week, the vendors who set up shop at the Red Hook ballfields may be at risk for losing their permit. According to the New York Times, the vendors have operated for years under a series of temporary use permits, but now they will have to place a formal bid with the city in order to remain in the space. But the vendors are not guaranteed to win this bid, so the fans of this culinary community institution have rallied behind it.

How hot does titanium get? And is it too hot for children to scamper on? Is corrugated cardboard sturdy enough after many rains? These are the questions that came to mind when we heard that Frank Gehry will design a playground for the Battery.

• Has DiFara been shuttered by the DOH? A tipster saw a telltale yellow sign slapped up. Sigh. [Eater]
• Zak Pelaccio has left the building at 5 Ninth, leaving Dan Parilla at the helm. [Mouthing Off]
• More crappy news -- could it possibly be the last summer of the Red Hook ball fields vendors? Put on your community action hat and write a letter to the Parks Commissioner, stat. [Grub Street]

With much fanfare, the city announced a new public space recycling pilot program last month at the Staten Island Ferry Terminals. Six locations across the city are getting blue and green recycling bins to encourage people to separate their glass bottles and newspapers from regular trash. Not a groundbreaking idea, an important step for the city to expand its recycling efforts.

There's a fun NY Times City section article about the Queens Museum of Art's Panorama Challenge. The Queens Museum of Art's panorama is a to-scale model of New York City: One inch equals 100 feet (the Empire State Building is 15 inches tall) and the model was originally designed for the 1964 World's Fair, as a "helicopter" ride over New York City. (And, yes, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses commissioned the panorama in 1964, just as he commissioned the Queens Museum of Art's building, the former New York City Pavilion for the 1939's World Fair.)

The Parks Department has finally formalized rules for allowing pets off-leash in city parks, following a revision of the health code by the Health Dept. to allow free-roaming dogs and a decision from a judge ruling that off-leash dogs were okay. A press release from the Parks Department announcing the change in policy outlined the allowable hours and locations dogs could be unclipped to roam. It also outlines requirements for pet owners to keep their dogs in compliance with the new rules when the policy goes into effect 30 days from today.

Today, the Parks Department announced a change in the rules concerning off-leash dogs in parks. Thirty days from now, the successful “courtesy hours” policy will officially become part of Parks’ rules and regulations. With proof of a current rabies vaccination and license information, owners can allow dogs to run off-leash in certain designated areas from the time the park opens until 9 a.m. and from 9 p.m. until the park closes...

Continue reading "City Dogs Unleashed"

If you see some adorable border collies bothering Canada geese in Central Park this April, you may have seen the Geese Police. The Parks Department will be conducting a one-month pilot program "using an environmentally-safe method to attempt to reduce the number of geese in Central Park": Using border collies to drive geese away!

Aha! Supermodel Naomi Campbell bring workboots with her to perform community service at a Department of Sanitation warehouse on South Street yesterday - they were just slung against her back. We didn't notice them before because we were trying to figure out her overall get-up. The Daily News reveals that while Campbell was wearing $1,000 Christian Louboutin boots and a $1,500 Azzedine Alaia coat, DOS employees only get a $900 uniform allowance each year for "shoes, vests, shirts and gloves." Check out this picture of Campbell working it in her DOS vest!

The city's Franchise and Concession Review Committee is scheduled to vote this coming week on whether or not to approve a proposal to have twenty Manhattan private schools pay for part of the renovation of Randall's Island athletic fields in return for exclusive use of a majority of the fields. The plan, which is separate from the controversial water park, calls for schools such as Dalton and Spence to pay the city $52 million dollars over twenty years. The city would kick in an additional $18 million for the fields, and $53 million for island infrastructure. In return for the payment the schools would get exclusive 3-6 p.m. use of at least two-thirds of the 63 playing fields.

Wednesday night, WNBC invited a bunch of bloggers to its first NYC Blogger Summit. Why? As Anil Dash put it, to "engage bloggers and encourage them to provide information and resources to the station's news-gathering efforts, in exchange for credit and exposure."

As the debate about the former Parks Commissioner rages on, Venerated newsman Gabe Pressman is cheerleading for Robert Moses. In an article posted on the WNBC web site, Pressman says that he knew the master builder.

To the relief of dog owners and to the dismay of the Juniper Park Civic Association, Queens Supreme Court Judge Peter J. Kelly ruled that off-leash hours for dogs between 9PM and 9AM are allowed, saying that the Parks Commissioner has the power to allow pups to frolic freely. While the Juniper Park Civic Association called the ruling "complete lunacy," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said, "Tired dogs are good dogs."

Nice: Court papers have been released showing how the city successfully blocked protests in Central Park, most notably protests during the Republican Convention. You might remember from two years ago that the some of the city's excuses for not having the protests on the Great Lawn were to protect the lawn (which had been renovated) and that the police might not be able to secure the lawn. But it turns out everyone's conspiracy theories were true: It seems that some police officials actually supported havng rallies at the lawn and that the city just wanted to tamp down politicial rallies during the convention and so close to Bloomberg's re-election. Last week, the NY Sun raised the issue in a story about a John Lennon tribute concert being rejected by the Parks Department, and today the NY Times looks at court papers; both papers find that the mayor was more involved with the permit-blocking that he previously admitted and that the Parks Department did everything possible to prevent events at the Great Lawn. From the NY Sun:

An e-mail from the Parks and Recreation Department's head marketing officer, Elizabeth Smith, said, "This [music of John Lennon] event does look great but we had to admit that it was going to be difficult, right after all our problems with the rally requests for the park, and right before Mike's re-election (this is for Oct 05) that this is likely to happen on the Great Lawn."

Continue reading "How the City Blocked Protests in Central Park"

The Triborough Bridge is 70 years old today. As the MTA puts it, the bridge is "actually three bridges, a viaduct, and 14 miles of approach roads connecting Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx." And traveling along it can provide some of the most beautiful views of the city -and the bridges themselves aren't bad. Today, the NY Times looks at the history of the bridge and its creator, Robert Moses. We liked this quote about Moses, the scarily powerful Parks Commissioner:

“He was a visionary,” said Robert Del Bagno, exhibitions manager at the Transit Museum in Brooklyn Heights, where “The Triborough Bridge: Robert Moses and the Automobile Age” is on display through next year.

Continue reading "Happy 70th Birthday, Triborough Bridge"

Ooh, the debate over whether or put the West Side Highway underground for a stretch on the Upper West Side (Lincoln Center area, really) in the West 60s is examined in the NY Times. And there's a graphic of how the tunnel would be placed and how new parkspace would be created as a result. The undergrounding of the highway won't happen for at least 10 years, and the project's funding is debatable, but the Riverside South Planning Corporation is excavating the ground.

But with the box ready when the viaduct needs to be replaced, the cost of rerouting the highway could be about the same as building a new viaduct. Some excavation would still be necessary, because the space for the box between 65th and 69th Streets was filled in when the first of the apartment buildings was being built. The box was suggested in the city's 1992 agreement that allowed Riverside South to be built, and the responsibility for building it was the developer's.

The NY Sun looks at Lincoln Center's redesign as the arts organization broke ground on the first part of their redevelopment plans:

The project is already underway, and the public will start to see evidence of construction soon. The Paul Milstein Plaza, which extends over 65th Street and is a hangout for Juilliard students, will be destroyed, and a temporary footbridge constructed between the Rose Building and the plaza level by Lincoln Center Theater. This will eventually be replaced by a translucent glass footbridge.

Continue reading "Lincoln Center's New Look"

This summer there's a series of (expensive) concerts going on at McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn. The site has been closed since 1984, and last year started undergoing renovations. Recently we received the following email from an unhappy local:

depressing.