If you've had to bike down Allen Street south of Delancey recently you might have noticed that the bike lanes stretching down to East Broadway are blocked off by construction at various points, forcing you to jockey with traffic into the pothole-marked street. Though initially projected to finish in March, a Parks Department rep tells us that the Pike-Allen Street Pedestrian Mall project won't be done until July. more ›

Yesterday, while everyone was focusing on Mayor Bloomberg's desire to kinda ban smoking in people's homes, an interesting bit of news about another of The People's Nanny's anti-smoking initiatives was revealed. The number of tickets written to people smoking in parks—tickets which many didn't think would ever really be written—have taken off like wildfire. more ›

It isn't just The Donald, nobody seems to be interested in running the Tavern on the Green. At least not the way the city, in its infinite wisdom, wants it run. Bids to take over the storied space are due today, but a story in the Times makes clear that many people are just not into putting their hats in the ring. "The city seemed to have an intention to strip away whatever Tavern on the Green once represented," explained one non-bidder to the paper. "So we decided not to do it." more ›

The latest round of bids to take over the faded splendor that was the Tavern on the Green are due to the city on Friday, but guess which publicity-loving real estate personality won't be submitting a bid on the money pit? Donald Trump. The city's plans for the Central park restaurant are just too pedestrian for The Donald. more ›

[Update Below] This week, New York City is committing mass arborcide in the name of public safety. Since Monday at least 100 trees in Isham and Inwood Hill Parks have been cut down, and more than 200 have been heavily pruned, in an attempt to make the areas safer. more ›

Adolescent extreme sports enthusiasts can no longer count on Inwood Hill Park as a training facility after the Parks Department blocked off a totally sweet slide that has injured 16 kids. According to a release from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, "Children can fall when moving from the ladder to the slide and when descending the chute," but we're not sure that the CPSC gets the proper technique. more ›

How much is a new senior sandbox worth in Flushing? According to the Daily News, a new bocce court the city is installing in Bowne Park will cost $507,000. “We all thought it was ridiculously high,” Community Board 7's parks committee chairman said. “Five-hundred-and-seven thousand dollars and a year for wood and dirt? Give me a break.” Well, we are living in an era of $15 pencil sharpenings. more ›

The kiosk in that little park at First Avenue and Houston, which was formerly occupied by Veselka and, before that, a forgettable coffee spot, has now been taken over by S'MAC. It's the first expansion for the wildly popular mac 'n' cheese restaurant, which for years has been doing brisk business a bit further north on 12th Street. more ›

And the next chapter in the never ending saga of Tavern on the Green begins! After its brief stint as a boozy food truck parking lot the storied Central Park restaurant is going to be a restaurant again. In theory. The Parks Department today released a Request For Proposals for a new operator for the space. Once the city is done doing some more construction on the space (which does not include the return of the late Crystal Room) it could be a "a high-quality casual restaurant, outdoor cafe and bar" by 2013! more ›

The NYPD is investigating a possible hate crime at the Parks Department's Bronx headquarters, where a black baby doll was found hanging by a metal chain noose yesterday morning. Geoffrey Croft at NYC Park Advocates reports that the 15 inch doll was discovered by a sixty-year-old black male Parks Department employee who had just returned to work from being out sick. One Parks employee tells Croft the man was traumatized and "looked like he was going to have a stroke." Three KKKs were also found scratched in a unisex bathroom on the first floor, sources tell Croft. more ›

The New York City Parks Department has denied The Christmas Marathon's request for a permit to hold a Christmas morning run in the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park. In response, the Christmas Marathon has issued a scathing statement illustrating the reasons that the Parks Department is on their naughty list this year. more ›

A toast is in order to the High Line today, which just took top honors in terms of drunk people, or at least drunk people who get caught drinking. The Parks Department has given out more summonses this past year—113, to be exact—for illegal drinking in the High Line than at any other park in the city. That's a lot of tickets for a petite seven-acre park—certainly enough to warrant a fresh bottle of bubbly, don't you think? more ›

Just because John Liu has some campaign cash problems doesn't mean he doesn't have a job to do. Just ask the Parks Department, which just received a scathing audit from the Comptroller's office regarding its handling of concessions [PDF]. Though Parks strongly disagrees with the audit's findings, Liu and co. say that in the past three years the Department has left roughly $8.8 million in additional revenues on the table due to poor planning and mismanagement. The Parks Department's biggest mess-up over the years? Clearly the late Tavern on the Green. more ›

Just when you thought it was safe to bike and sit and fish (maybe not fish) off the new East River Esplanade, four wheeled rogues clothed in disgraceful New York puns and stubby shoes ruin the fun. DNAinfo reports that City councilmember Margaret Chin was SHOCKED to find the area rife with skateboarders. "It's really dangerous," Chin said in a hearing last week. "It's supposed to be a really tranquil place for people to sit and look at the water, but it was filled with young adults on skateboards. You need to create a place for them." Despite there being two skateparks nearby, we suppose the "tranquility" of sitting underneath the FDR is too much of a draw. more ›

Talk about a school trip you won't forget! Yesterday a park ranger in Prospect Park had to cut short an educational tour for kids to go and apprehend a 52-year-old man who had been seen allegedly masturbating in the park. Good thing, too. When the ranger caught up with the man, 53-year-old Glen Perouza, not only did he find drugs on him—cops say they also found a fully loaded 9mm handgun on him. more ›

If there's one thing everyone can agree on, it's that New York City needs more high-rises. But there's one thing stopping real-estate behemoth Related Companies from building 49 stories of delicious commercial and residential real estate: Ruppert Park playground. According to the Post, Related purchased the park in 1983 for $10 million, and in exchange for maintaining the park received tax breaks for its nearby properties. Related had to take care of the park until 2008 per the contract, but continued maintaining it until last month. Now it's padlocked, preventing any childish joy from poisoning a potential building site. more ›

Good news for fans of sitting near playgrounds without children! Back in June we told you about four twentysomethings who were ticketed by the police because they were sitting, eating doughnuts, in a Bed-Stuy playground unaccompanied by children. Two months later at least half of those tickets have been dismissed and sealed. Meanwhile in Manhattan, at least, it seems that cops are giving elderly women warnings about where they are sitting rather than tickets. Oh, and the Parks Department seems to understand that their signage can be a little confusing if placed in the wrong spot. more ›

Plans for a three-story beachside waterslide at Coney Island were deflated today after too much red tape sunk the project. "Parks basically said, 'You know what, we cannot invest any time and energy into this project any longer," said Party Magic USA owner Anthony Gach, who was slated to build a three-story inflatable waterslide and bungee jumping platforms as part of the Parks Department's effort to build a "beach adventure" attraction this summer. more ›

In an agreement the city hopes will help plug the $11 million hole it left in the Brooklyn Bridge Park budget last month and finance the $16 million a year it will take to keep the park running, limited private housing will be built around the park near John Street and by Pier 6. The John Street high-rise will be 40,000 square feet smaller, and the Pier 6 buildings may also be shrunk or eliminated altogether. What's the catch? The Times reports that State Senator Daniel Squadron and Assemblywoman Joan Millman lose their veto power over the developments. more ›

Brighton Beach is blanketed with trash. No, you gutter-minded folk, that's not referring to the chaste women of Lifetime's new series "Russian Dolls," but the trash on the beach that is reportedly caused by a new policy set in place by the Parks Department. NY1 reports that by putting the trash cans in groups at the entrances and exits of the beach and away from where people actually sit, the Parks Department is contributing to the mess on the sand. One Brighton Beach-goer tells the reporter, "The sand is very hot and most people are not going to want to start trekking across the sand to to just put garbage in a can." Sheesh, maybe the tagline for that Lifetime show should be called "Brighton's Bunions: Don't Turn Our Widdle Piggies Into BBQ." more ›

Brooklyn artist Leon Reid IV launched a Kickstarter campaign this month in the hopes of dressing up the George Washington statue in Union Square (as he once did with Abraham Lincoln overseas). Specifically, Reid wanted to add props like an "I ♥ NY" hat, a subway map, and local shopping bags to make "a comic reflection of New York's tourist industry and spark public curiosity as to Washington's role in New York City history." Art In Odd Places was hoping to include the piece in their festival in October, and called Reid's work "very intelligent." But the city doesn't think so. more ›

Last week, after a four-alarm fire shut down the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Harlem, the city dumped millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Hudson River. That dump ended on Friday night but the fallout continues. more ›

Folks attempting to escape the record heat at one of the city's public pools on Friday and continuing through the weekend witnessed a particularly violent scene. As Geoffrey Croft with NYC Park Advocates reports, 15 people were arrested at public pools in all five boroughs. The majority of the incidents involved fighting or disorderly conduct, and at one of location two responding NYPD officers received injuries. In addition, a 36-year-old man was arrested for "forcible touching/sexual abuse" of a woman at Fisher Pool in Queens, a female was arrested for cutting a 15-year-old girl with a knife at Kosciuszko Pool in Brooklyn, and two switchblades were found at the bottom of Thomas Jefferson Pool in Harlem. more ›

The death toll from last week's tragic swimming pool accident on Staten Island has reached two. Yesterday morning Jonathan Proce, 21, died of complications from a grueling underwater endurance regimen that claimed the life of his friend Bodnar Vitenko, also 21, earlier in the week. more ›

Being a lifeguard is to balance the very important job of protecting the lives of swimmers with the crushing monotony of sitting in the sun, twirling a whistle all day. 28-year-old lifeguard Erlen Rodriguez felt he could get stoned before heading to his job at the Wagner pool on E. 124th street, but was pulled over after running a red light and almost killing pedestrians in the street. According to the Post, inside Rodriguez's 1992 Honda was "a joint and a golfball-sized bag of marijuana," along with his 26-year-old girlfriend and their two children—ages 5 and 11—in the backseat. more ›

One young man is dead and another is clinging to life after a breath-holding exercise went terribly awry in Staten Island yesterday. Bodhan Vitenko and Jonathan Proce, both 21, were pulled, seemingly lifeless, from the bottom of the Lyons pool yesterday morning at around 8:25 a.m. and immediately went into cardiac arrest. For the past month they had been practicing at the 3 1/2 foot deep pool with two friends in the hopes of one day joining elite military groups. Vitenko, a John Jay College student with Navy aspirations, died about 9:45 a.m. while Proce is still listed in critical condition. more ›