Gov. Cuomo Puts Brakes On Controversial Parkland Development

"We are concerned that a park's zoning properties could facilitate alienation to private real estate developers. Classification as a park or parkland should not provide zoning bonuses to private industry."   -  Governor Andrew Cuomo

Rendering of the massive 1,175,000 square foot development including a more than 700 foot high luxury building, three non-Harlem Zone 4 schools, and retail space on 96th Street and 2nd Avenue, a project the community refers to as The WALL.  The city is attempting to seize a popular playground to build the $ 1 billion dollar development project.   

Manhattan

By Geoffrey Croft

Not so fast.  

Governor Andrew Cuomo has put the brakes on a controversial de Blasio’s administration plan to seize a popular playground to build a $ 1 billion dollar development project.   

In approving the State Parkland Alienation bill late Monday evening the Governor raised serious questions regarding the park's legal status and as a result the city's ability to develop the playground.

Marx Brother's Playground including artificial turf field - 2nd Avenue between 96th and 97th Street.  The massive 1.1 million square foot project would encompass an entire city block.   When re-built under the proposal the new playground would be in the shade for most of the day.   (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) Click on images to enlarge

The Governor is requiring on the State's Office of Parks and Recreation to review the parks records and uses before the City can proceed with the project.  

Critics have argued that creating zoning for parks would set a terrible precedent and open the floodgates for future parkland development city-wide.

The Governor shares these concerns.

"We are concerned that a park's zoning properties could facilitate alienation to private real estate developers. Classification as a park or parkland should not provide zoning bonuses to private industry,"  Governor Cuomo wrote. (See below)

"Confirming the  status and nature of the land has significant legal implications for New York City and residents who want assurances that they will have access to outdoor recreation."   

The De Blasio’s administration is now claiming that the park had been improperly designated as parkland,  even though the State alienated it twice, including just a few months ago for this project.

In June the State voted to alienated the park over the objections of area residents and civic organizations.

The Educational Construction Fund (ECF) came up with a scheme that would dramatically increase the size currently allowed under existing zoning, re-zone the park. In August the City Council approved it.

Critics contend that the alienation of a public park in order to generate development rights is a circumvention of the Zoning Resolution’s regulations that specifically preclude public parks from having development rights. 

The park's re-zoning is expected to be the subject of future litigation.

The city is planning to build a more than 700 foot high, 1,175,000 square feet  luxury building,   three non-Harlem Zone 4 schools, and retail space on the corner of 96th Street and 2nd Avenue, a project the community refers to as The WALL.  

The project would built 1100 apartments including  315 affordable housing units under the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law,  and 25,000 square feet of commercial space.



Proposed Mark Brother's Playground use. Rendering of new Co-Op Tech School and retail space as seen from 97th Street and Second Avenue. The rendering depicts just a few floors of the more than 700 foot residential tower in the background. This irresponsible development would be built on Marx Brothers Playground which the public has been shut out of the since 2007. The community is demanding that the playground be restored to its original location at 96th Street & 2nd Avenue. 

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has championed the controversial project. 

According to ECF the Speaker dramatically changed the scope of the project in 2013. The change would allow the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, a long time project of the Speaker's to greatly expand.   

The center, located on Lexington Avenue and 105th Street, currently shares space with the Heritage School, one of the two new schools the Speaker is hoping to move to 96th Street.

The Julia de Burgos Cultural Center is managed by The Hispanic Federation, who's first director, Luis A. Miranda is Mark-Viverito's chief political consultant as well as a de Blasio consultant.

Critics say this would set a very bad precedent, one that could open the floodgates and, at a minimum allow the development of not only every single one of the approximately 250 Parks Department Jointly Operated Parks properties it shares with the DOE throughout the city,  but ALL parks could be subjected to development if this proposed legislation is passed.  

Yesterday a coalition of civic organizations, and East Harlem and upper east side residents came together to call on the Governor to stop the City from inappropriately alienating parkland and to grant air rights to a private developer. 

The coalition included Trust For Public land, NYC Park Advocates, Carnegie Hill Neighbors, Municipal Art Society, New Yorkers for Parks, the Historic Districts Council, Friends of the Upper Eastside Historic Districts, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, 96th St. Neighbors, Landmarks West, Human Scale NYC.

According to ECF the legislation would allow the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, a long time project of the Speaker's to greatly expand.  The center, (above) located on Lexington Avenue and 105th Street, currently shares space with the Heritage School, one of two schools the Speaker is hoping to move to 96th Street. 

Marx Brothers Playground site - 96th Street and Second Avenue.   The MTA is legally required to restore the playground after "temporarily" occupying 0.5 acres of the 1.5  acre park since 2007 as a staging area during Second Avenue Subway construction.  The MTA also paid $11 million to the Parks Department as mitigation for allowing its use. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently moved out of the playground (below).  (Photos: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) Click on images to enlarge

Read More:

Cuomo calls for investigation on de Blasio’s playground plan
New York Post - October 24, 2017 - By Rich Calder and Kirstan Conley

Playground brawl: Gov halts Mayor over NYC park named for comedy legends

WPIX - October 25, 2017 

Questions over jurisdiction pause plan to relocate NYC playground

New York Daily News - October 25, 2017 - By Glenn Blain

Residents fight plan for 63-story building on East 96th Street 

NY 1 - August 1, 2017 - By Michael Scotto

City Planning Holds Hearing on Skyscraper East Harlem Development

CityLand - July 5, 2017 - By Jonathon Sizemore

State Votes To Give Marx Brother's Playground To Private Developer For Massive Complex
A Walk In The Park - June 25, 2017 - By Geoffrey Croft 

City Seizing Parkland On UES To Build Massive Tower Complex - Residents Furious
A Walk In The Park - June 21, 2017 - By Geoffrey Croft 

Dr. Marion Sims Statue Vandalized In Central Park

Manhattan

By Geoffrey Croft 

The statue of controversial gynecologist James Marion Sims was defaced in Central Park over the weekend.

The word "Racists" was spray painted in red paint on the face and on the back of the statue. 

No cameras are located in the immediate area according to police who are investigating.

The vandalism was discovered on Saturday, 9 a.m.

Last week City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito held a press conference calling for the removal of the statue amid revelations for more than a decade that Sims performed experimental operations on enslaved women without getting their consent or giving them anesthesia.   

The bronze and granite Sims monument was originally dedicated in 1894 in Bryant Park. It was moved to the perimeter of Central Park at East 103rd Street and 5th Avenue in 1934, across from the Academy of Medicine, of which Dr. Sims was a member.

The monument is among the statues that a city commission is reviewing for possible removal following the deadly white nationalist rally on August 12th in Charlottesville, Va. 

That demonstration was organized to protest the removal of a statue of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. 

Often referred to as the "father of modern gynecology," he founded the first hospital for women in America in New York City in 1855.

Central Park: Root System Decay Cause Of Tree Failure Injury

Manhattan

By Geoffrey Croft

Root system decay caused the massive American Elm tree to come crashing down on a family of four  on Tuesday in Central Park.

An inspection determined the tree fell over “as a result of decay in the root system beneath the surrounding pavement,”  according to the Central Park Conservancy,  the non-profit group responsible for tree maintenance in the iconic park.

 The group said the tree was last inspected in November.

“There were no visible signs of decay or disease,”  conservancy spokeswoman Jordan Jacuzzi said.

“The conservancy employs tree crews seven days a week who regularly inspect and maintain Central Park's nearly 20,000 trees according to industry standards,” she said.

On Tuesday morning Anne Monoky Goldman, 39, was out with her three young boys when the massive tree suddenly fell, pinning the family underneath.

The mother was listed in critical condition with a broken neck at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center Wednesday, according to police sources.

Her 3-year-old son Grant suffered a fractured skull. His injuries are not expected to be life threatening.

Her two other sons, James 4 months, and Will, 4, received less serious injuries.

Yesterday a family visiting from Spain was struck by a fallen tree branch in City Hall Park.

On July 31st,  a tree fell over on top of a woman who was sitting on a bench in Joyce Kilmer Park in the Bronx.

Injuries by falling trees or tree limbs are fairly infrequent, according to internal Parks Department documents. 31 people were injured by falling trees or branches between 2011 and 2015 according to data obtained from a Freedom of Information Law request.

That number is dramatically different however from data compiled from the City's Comptroller's office.

Each year there are typically more than 100 notices of claim related to injuries from fallen trees or tree limbs each year, according to the Comptroller’s office.

Read More:

Central Park tree that fell on family had rotten roots, conservancy says
New York Daily News -  August 16, 2017 - By Thomas Tracy, Reuven Blau, Chelsia Rose Marcius

Central Park: Woman & Kids Struck By Massive Tree
A Walk In The Park - August 15, 2017 - By Geoffrey Croft

Tree Falls On Woman In Bronx Park While Sitting On Bench
A Walk In The Park - August 1, 2017 - By Geoffrey Croft

Central Park: Woman & Kids Struck By Massive Tree

A massive American Elm tree suddenly came down near 62nd Street and the West Drive, striking a family of four who were pinned beneath it.   The incident occured at 10:00am. (Photos: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) Click on images to enlarge

Manhattan

By Geoffrey Croft

A 39-year-old woman was knocked unconscious by a massive American Elm tree while she pushed a stroller in the park with her three children. 

Anne Goldman,  her three sons, 4, 2 and a 4-month old infant she was carrying wearing a baby carrier were pinned under the branches and tree canapy after the tree suddenly came down.

The size of the tree stetched across the lengh of the West Drive near 63rd Street.

Good Samaritans quickly arrived at the scene and worked together to remove the branches.

An NYPD mounted unit heading down to Trump building detail joined the rescue.

Officers said they heard a loud crack, "It happened very quickly," said police officer Joesph Tomeo.

The mother was lying on her back when police arrived.

"What happened, what happened," officer Tomeo said the woman asked.

The officer described the stroller as, "twisted" from the impact of the tree.



"It was heart breaking," said mounted NYPD officer Meghan O'Leary who also provided assistance at the scene.

FDNY removed tree limbs with chainsaws and EMS treated and removed the family.

All four of the victims were taken to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.  Police said the infant had a few scratches and bruises.

"God helped her out,"  said Antonio Russo, 57, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn who said he was about 100 feet way on his bike when he is saw the tree come down.

"It came down in slow motion,"  he said. "It came down nice and easy."

Russo said the mother's youngest boy was crying.

"She just wanted to see her baby, " he said.


Investigators at the scene.

  
This afternoon Central Park Conservancy workers and a contractor removed the remains of the tree.

The incident occurred approximately 40 yards from where a Google engineer was severally injured when a large rotted tree branch fell and struck him in the head.

In 2013 the city quietly settled the case for $11.5 million dollars. 

The city also quietly paid $3 million dollars to settle a case involving an Albanian immigrant from Brooklyn who was killed by a fallen American elm tree near 69th Street while walking through Central Park less than six months earlier.  That case was settled as the jury was being selected.  

In June 2013, a 59-year-old tourist from Indiana was injured after she was struck by a tree limb in Central Park.

Multiple lawsuits against the City are still pending.

Erin Ade‏ @erinade  Good Samaritans helped the trapped family, working together to remove the branches.








A Central Park Conservancy worker removing the remains of the tree.









A Central Park Conservancy worker removes the remains of the large canopy debris field after the incident. (Photos: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) Click on images to enlarge

Read More:

Central Park Tree Lawsuits: $11.5 Million Payout As City Quietly Settles Google Engineer Tree Injury Suit- $ 3 Million For Albanian Immigrant Living in Brooklyn Killed.
A Walk In the Park -  June 2, 2013 - By Geoffrey Croft

Trees Topples in Central Park, Injuring 4

New York Times - August 15, 2017 - By Sarah Maslin Nir and Jonathan Wolfe 

Central Park tree falls on mother holding infant son, trapping her, FDNY says
AMNY - August 15, 2017 -  By Alex Bazeley and Polly Higgins

Mother, Three Children Hurt After Tree Falls In Central Park
CBS - August 15, 2017 

Brooklyn Bridge Park Advocate Foe Sen. Dan Squadron Resigns

March 22, 2010.  The Gang's All Here.  Officials including Dan Squadron (far left) at the ceremonial ribbon cutting on a drizzly morning.  "The City does not have the money to have new parks and fund them," Mayor Bloomberg famously said. (Photos: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates)    Click on images to enlarge.

Brooklyn/Manhattan

By Geoffrey Croft

One of the villains in the fight for control of Brooklyn Bridge Park is resigning from his State Senate seat. 

Good riddance say long time Brooklyn Bridge Park supporters. 

This morning controversial State Senator Sen. Dan Squadron sent out a message announcing his sudden resignation effective this Friday. 

Squadron incurred the wrath of Brooklyn Bridge Park advocates in 2011when he cut a behind closed door deal with the Bloomberg administration which gave up his veto power over allowing housing in Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

Staunch park advocate Judi Francis worked behind the scenes on the state level to achieve veto power over future housing development in the park.  

“He told no one,” Judi Francis said of the betrayal. “It was a body blow to the community,” she said.

“He was able to knock 30 feet off the top of one building, that’s what he got for giving up his veto (power) over three buildings that were on the books and any other future buildings in the park,”  Francis said.   

As part of the deal he also helped negotiate a pop-up pool for five years for the park, an RFP for a year-round recreational facility which never went anywhere and two tennis courts that were supposed to be built on top of a maintenance building but were not.  A Community Advisory Council (CAC)  was also established, an entity Ms. Francis calls, “totally dysfunctional.”

“In 2011 he gave up the most powerful thing a legislator can have which is complete veto power over a development project inside public lands,"  she said.

“After much reflection, I have decided to lend my hand to make a difference in states across the country, pushing policies and candidates that will create a fairer and more democratic future,” Squadron wrote today. 

“It’s not possible to take on this challenge and continue to be a full-time legislator, which is what I always promised I would be," he said. 

Squadron has represented the 26th District which covers parts of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn since 2008.   The vacant seat will be filled in this November’s election. 

While running for the Senate he ran on a platform promising to fight residential development housing in the park. 

Squadron defeated incumbent Senate Minority Leader Martin Connor who served for 30 years, receiving 54% of the vote, a victory many say was won in large part with the help of Brooklyn Bridge Park supporters on the housing issue.  (Bloomberg endorsed Squadron for Public Advocate)

He further infuriated park advocates in 2013 when it was revealed in the media that he accepted more than $ 65,000 from supporters of a residential development inside the park,  He took in contributions from members Brooklyn Bridge Conservancy and several Brooklyn Bridge Development Corp.  board members as well as the president of Brooklyn Bridge Park, Regina Myer. 

The betrayal sill resonates today.  

“Six years ago on August 1st, this man gave up his mighty veto over BBP housing,”  Judi Francis said in a statement.

"Just over two years after his election - an election won on the principle of no housing inside our public parks and won by our advocacy to protect BBP from further housing and using our advocacy to point out the many, many ways to pay for the park. He gave up the veto we had lobbied the state to give to him. Why? To further his own unbridled and unprincipled ambition for his own personal gains,"  she wrote. 

Squadron’s wife Elizabeth “Liz” Weinstein rose to head the Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Operations.

In 2013 Squadron also introduced legislation that would have forced non-profit park groups to allocate a percentage of their incomes to other parks. 

That idea was quickly dismissed. 

Squadron previous worked as a staffer on Congressman Anthony Weiner’s 2005 mayoral campaign. In 2013 he ran unsuccessfully for New York Public Advocate a position won by Letitia James who hammered his flip flop on housing in the park.

“We are happy to see him go,”  said Francis who has worked for more than thirty years to acheive a "real  park" when reached by phone.

The City and State's refusel to take responsibly to fund the park's annual maintiance has been at the forfront of the more than decade long fight.

"The City does not have the money to have new parks and fund them," Mayor Bloomberg famously said at the opening of Brooklyn Bridge Park on March 22, 2010.

In 2010 the Bloomberg administration negoiated a $ 55 million dollar deal to hand over control of the former City/State Brooklyn Bridge Park project to the city.  By insisting that the park be "self-sustaining"  as a condition for the city taking control, the administration successfully achieved one of its most sought after goals – to inherit NY State's funding scheme its employes for the maintenance and operation of its public parkland. 

Much of the funding for the operation of NY State's parks is paid from concession and fee revenue. One of the most contentious issues with Brooklyn Bridge Park is the inclusion of housing that the government insists is necessary to pay for the park's operation.

Remember The Stunning Views - July 29, 2013. The panoramic views have been replaced by housing.


Read More:

Park Disparity Funding Solution According To Daniel Squadron - 
Have Central Park Foot the Bill

A Walk In The Park - March 29, 2014 

Squadron & Millman Sell Out In Deal With City To Bring More Housing To Brooklyn Bridge Park

A Walk In The Park - August 2, 2011 

Brooklyn Bridge “PID" Funding Scheme Dead In The Water

A Walk In The Park - February 22, 2011 

Bloomberg Rejects Proposal For The City To Pay To Maintain Brooklyn 

Bridge Park - Taxes Eyed 

A Walk In The Park - December 21, 2010

More Housing Likely For Brooklyn Bridge Park- Report

A Walk In The Park - June 10, 2011

Bloomberg Rejects Proposal For The City To Pay To Maintain Brooklyn 
Bridge Park - Taxes Eyed

A Walk In The Park - December 21, 2010

No Housing In Brooklyn Bridge Park Critics Assert Once Again

 A Walk In The Park - December 1, 2010 - By Geoffrey Croft 
 

Bloomy’s Takeover Does Not Ensure A Real Brooklyn Bridge Park - Editorial

 A Walk In The Park - March 11, 2010 
 

City Get Its Wish - State Park Funding Mechanism For Brooklyn Bridge Park

A Walk In The Park - March 9, 2010

Police Charge Serial Sex Offender In Queens Parks Attacks

Sketch of suspect Michael Andrade, 45,  wanted in a string of sexual assaults on female joggers beginning in 2011 in Forest Park.   In September 2013 Police released a new sketch of the suspect wanted in the Forest Park rape and had tied him to five more sexual assaults around the area.  At the time a $22,000 reward had been offered for information on the case.  The park has a long history of sexual assaults and other criminal activities. 

In 2009 two woman reported being raped in Forest Park.  In July 2011, Carl Wallace, 30, was sentenced to serve up to 32 years for the 2009 knife-point rape and robbery of a 29-year-old woman in Forest Park.

Queens

By Geoffrey Croft

Police charged a Richmond Hill man who terrorized women beginning in 2011 in a Queens Park. The victim's ages were between 13 and 69-years-old.

Police arrested Mark Andrade 45, yesterday morning outside his home of 102-14 91st Avenue, at 9:00am after recovering DNA that matched a 2003 park attack of a 24-year-old jogger.

He was arrested for a March 29, 2003 sexual attack of the jogger  in Forest Park on a bridle path in which the suspect used a stun gun.  

He is also a suspect in five other attacks in the park over six years matching the same the pattern according to police. In all, the pattern consisted of one rape and five attempted rapes.

The female victim was able to grab a beer bottle out of the assailant’s rear pocket she threw it way at the scene. People recovered DNA from the bottle and were able to link him to the crime.

 “This one young lady struggled with him and actually pulled a beer (bottle) out of his back pocket and then threw it,”  said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.

“We retrieved that beer bottle as part of the crime scene. That’s where we swabbed and got the DNA,” he said at a press conference today. 

Mark Andrade is charged with Attempted Rape, Robbery (he took the victim’s cell phone), Assault, Attempted Predatory Sex Assault, Sex abuse and Criminal Possession of a Weapon for using a stun gun.

Police said they were able to recover DNA in two of the cases after he was arrested in Nassau County for grand larceny and his DNA was entered into the database.

His last arrest was in Rockville Center, Long Island for grand larceny in 2015. Following that arrest, he was required to give a DNA sample.

Police have DNA in one other (unspecified) attack in this pattern but he has not yet been charged.

Police say he is responsible for six attacks in total on female joggers on the bridal past between March 2011 and August 2013 but has so far been charged with only one.

Andrade has six prior arrests, none for sex crimes including a 1989 arrest in NYC is sealed and five others in Long Island for grand larceny and insurance fraud.

Pattern

• March 25th,  2011, 11:30 a.m., a 54-year-old jogger was attacked on the bridal path.     The woman was jogging early in the morning when a man wearing a black ski mask grabbed her from behind and attempted to pull off her running tights. She fought him off. 

• September 7, 2011, 10 p.m., a 13-year-old girl was attacked on the bridal path. The suspect threw her to the ground and attempted to pull her shorts down. The victim screamed and fought off the suspect who then fled the location.

• August 15, 2012, 1 p.m. a 34-year-old female was attacked on the bridal path.

• November 28, 2012, 10 a.m. a 40-year-old was attacked on the bridal path

• March 29, 2013, 7 p.m., a 24-year-old female was attacked on the bridal path. (Crime  police charged him with today)

• August 26, 2013, 4:30 p.m., a 69-year-old woman was attacked on the bridal path. (A stun gun was in this attack)



The 2013 sketch released by police of suspect wanted in several sexual assaults of woman in Forest Park.


Read More: 

Police Tie Forest Park Rape Suspect To Five Additional Sexual Assaults 

- Release New Sketch

A Walk In The Park - September 7, 2013 

69-Year-Old, Tasered & Raped In Forest Park

A Walk In The Park - August 30, 2013 

Two NYPD Officers Assigned To Forest Park After Sexual Assaults

A Walk In The Park - June 20, 2013 

Police Release Sketch Of Forest Park Taser Attacker - Joggers On High Alert

A Walk In The Park - March 31, 2013

Female Jogger Tasered, Sexually Attacked, & Robbed In Forest Park

A Walk In The Park - March 30, 2013 

Sex Crimes In Parks On The Rise

A Walk In The Park - December 1, 2012 - By Geoffrey Croft 

Man Exposes Himself To Jogger In Forest Park

A Walk In The Park - November 28, 2012 

Woman Sexually Attacked in Forest Park

A Walk In The Park  - August 24, 2012 

Attempted Rape of 13-Year Old Girl In Forest Park

A Walk In The Park  - September 9, 2011 

Forest Park Rapist Sentenced Up To 32 Years

A Walk In The Park - July 21, 2011 -  

Forest Park Sexual Attack Victim Speaks Out

A Walk In The Park  - April 4, 2011 

Attempted Sexual Assault On Jogger In Forest Park

A Walk In The Park - March 26, 2011 - By Geoffrey Croft