Two Men Rob Jogger In Central Park - iPad Stolen

Manhattan

Police are searching for the two men who robbed a jogger inside of Central Park, according to Eyewitness News.

It happened early Wednesday morning around 6:15 at 110th Street and 5th Avenue inside the park.

Two suspects approached a 46-year-old man who was jogging in the park and began to punch him.

The victim fell to the ground and dropped his iPad, which the robbers picked up before running away.

The first suspect is described as a black man in his 20s, about 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-9. He was wearing a brown T-shirt, khaki pants, black sneakers and has a goatee.

The second suspect is described as a black man between the ages of 25 and 30, and is also 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-9. He was wearing a gray shirt, blue jeans and has a goatee.

Anyone with information in regards to this robbery is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.

You can also submit your tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website atWWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting your tips to 274637(CRIMES) and then entering TIP577.

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Jogger robbed by two men in Central Park

Eyewitness News - June 23, 2011

Parks Department Leases To HBO In Cedar Grove-New Park Not Created

Cedar Grove cottages remain abandoned behind a chain link fence erected by the Parks Department in September. Since the City closed the property critics charge the public has less access to the site than when the residents of Cedar Grove occupied the property.

Besides the cottages, the park's two tennis courts, baseball field, basketball court are not available for the community. Local schools and community groups used to use the facilities. The City's conversion of the bungalow community into a public park appears to be at least three years away. (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates.) Click on Images to enlarge

The Parks Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

Staten Island

Press Release

June 22, 2011

NYC PARKS DEPARTMENT SCAMS STATEN ISLAND RESIDENTS

Parks Officials Lie To The Public About True Plans For Cedar Grove Beach and Violate NYS Freedom of Information Law

Once again the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation has misled the public and elected officials about one of their projects. Documents recently obtained by residents of Cedar Grove Beach Club show that the Parks Department, while claiming to “open up the park for public use”, has actually licensed use of the site to a production company filming Boardwalk Empire for HBO. In fact, the public has less access to the site now than they had when the residents of Cedar Grove occupied the property. Members of the community can no longer ride their bikes, walk their dogs or go fishing on the land. Fences and Parks personnel prohibit these activities.

The contract between Parks and Bootleg Productions, which has a termination date of August 31, 2011 and allows for an unspecified number of extensions, actually earns the City far less money than was paid each year by Cedar Grove Beach Club. The contract calls on the production company to provide Parks with “in-kind donations of goods and services of at least or greater than, $80,000”. Cedar Grove Beach Club paid more than twice that each year and maintained the entire site at no cost to the taxpayer.

In fact, since the Parks Department evicted the residents, it has let Cedar Grove Beach become a filthy wasteland and allowed the shore to become strewn with debris. Before the recent “Grand Opening” Memorial Day weekend, it was the production company, not Parks, who cleaned the portion of beachfront which Parks is allowing the public to access. In addition, only about half the beachfront has been cleaned. The rest remains a litter-strewn eyesore which is partly why Parks Department employees have refused access to the public. When Cedar Grove Beach Club maintained the site, the entire stretch of beach was cleaned and maintained weekly and the public was allowed full access to the beach and ocean.

“It certainly seems that Parks has evicted us and our families so that they can give the site over to a company to use as a taxpayer-subsidized back lot!” Glenn Sheehan, Vice President of Cedar Grove Beach Club stated. “All along our elected officials and residents of the New Dorp community were asking, ‘Why now? Where is the demand?’ It seems that Parks is willing to sacrifice one hundred plus years of Staten Island history so the Commissioner can get a byline on Boardwalk Empire!” Sheehan went on to say.

“The site should be returned to the residents of Cedar Grove Beach Club who maintained it and preserved it at their own expense, at least until the City has a real plan and the permits and funding to complete it.”

Brief History

The Last of Staten Island’s Beach Colonies

Cedar Grove Beach Club is a collection of 41 historic beach bungalows largely built between 1913 and 1940 in New Dorp, Staten Island. The 75-cottage original community was established around 1907 as one of many beach campgrounds during the heyday of Staten Island’s east shore vacation resorts. Today the Beach Club, located south of the corner of Ebbitts Avenue and Cedar Grove Avenue, is a close-knit community of families who have been on the beach for over five generations. In the 1960s, led by Robert Moses, New York City seized land and cottages via eminent domain as part of a plan to build an expressway through the site. While the road was never built, the scheme resulted in the destruction of almost all of Staten Island’s historic seaside resort communities. Cedar Grove alone escaped demolition when Nixon signed the Gateway Act into law in 1972. The bungalow owners and the Beach Club have rented the property back from the City for nearly 50 years while being responsible for all maintenance of the public beach, playgrounds and property.

Residents Evicted

An impressive, bipartisan outcry of calls and letters were submitted to Parks Commissioner Benepe and Mayor Bloomberg from numerous elected officials, including Council members Vincent Ignizio, James Oddo and Deborah Rose, Manhattan City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito (chair of the Parks Committee of the City Council), Congressman Michael McMahon, NYS Senators Andrew Lanza, Frank Padavan, and Diane Savino, Assembly Members Janele Hyer-Spencer, Matthew Titone and Michael Cusick, as well as the New Dorp Central Civic Association, the Historic Districts Council and hundreds of community members, who called for Parks to abandon their plans to destroy this important historic district and evict 41 families from the beach. Despite tremendous opposition, the Administration went ahead with efforts to force the longtime residents of the Cedar Grove Beach Club to leave their homes on September 30th, 2010, to make way for what the Parks Department claimed would be a “public park.”

Violation of NYS Freedom of Information Law

In addition to the bait-and-switch game the Parks Department has played on the residents of Staten Island with the Cedar Grove debacle, there are many other Parks transgressions: the Ocean Breeze Track facility, the host of problems surrounding the collapse of Cromwell Center into the harbor, the “disappearance” of $8M allocated to help save Goodhue Woods, the unwarranted destruction of Benjamin Soto Skate Park, the “rehabilitation” of Mahoney Playground, as well as countless other missteps. We can now add blatant violation of NY State Law onto the list. On April 19, 2011, community activist and former Cedar Grove Beach Club resident David Young requested various documents from the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation under entitlement of the NY State Freedom of Information Law.

Acting on information from a well-placed source working within the Department of Parks and Recreation headquarters in Manhattan, Mr. Young included in his FOIL request that he be given all emails to and from Parks Department employees that contained, among other things, the names “Oddo,” “Ignizio,” “Molinaro,” and “McMahon.” Said Young; “I included those names because the information that I have suggests that various high-ranking Parks officials were making fun of our elected officials and the residents of Staten Island.” Young continued, “The residents of Staten Island are tired of being treated as second-class citizens by this Administration. That Parks Department officials chose to disrespect our elected officials and make fun of my neighbors is unacceptable by any standard and they must be held accountable for their actions.” The initial request was constructively denied.

Following the appropriate procedures under the Statute, Young then filed an appeal of denial directly to Commissioner Benepe and the designated Records Access Officer for the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. To this date, Parks has not acknowledged receipt of the appeal, even though Mr. Young has proof of delivery. To ignore a FOIL request is a direct violation of the Statute and Mr. Young plans to bring forth action against Parks and Commissioner Benepe in State Supreme Court under Article 78. When asked for comment, Young said; “It is unfortunate that I may have to take them to court in order to force them to comply with the law. I am confident my information is accurate. Otherwise, Parks would have at least acknowledged my request and dragged me through a long, torturous process. There is obviously something they are hiding, because if there wasn’t, they would have simply complied with the law, as they are required.”

“Our elected representatives, especially Council members Oddo and Ignizio, continue to support the residents of New Dorp, Oakwood and Cedar Grove Beach in our efforts to find out what is really going on. They want to help us try to discover the reason why there was such a rush to evict the residents of the Cedar Grove Beach community. For them to be mocked and ridiculed for their efforts by Parks officials in emails poking fun at residents of Staten Island by calling us “backwards” and “trash,” amongst other things, is quite frankly, an outrage.”

Then there remains the highly questionable presence of HBO. Numerous times the Parks Department has stated in print, that it was illegal for Cedar Grove Beach Club to occupy this site and that it must be further opened up to the public. If this was in fact true, a claim that the Parks Department has yet to provide proof of , then how is it now legal for HBO to have a license agreement and occupy the same property? HBO, who has replaced the original Cedar Grove residents as the tenants in the fragile cottages and has disturbed the surrounding neighborhood with its hordes of equipment and personnel, is currently filming the series “Boardwalk Empire” primarily in cottage #4. Bootleg Productions, the production company who is also occupying the property, does not appear to be acting as proper caretakers of any of the other cottages, nor the beach. It seems that they have disregarded any historic value which the cottages represent, since they have applied for permission to demolish three of the homes to get a better view for their cameras.

Parks has stated in past reports that it is their intention to allow the cottages to remain “exposed to the elements,” with absolutely no attempt to preserve them regardless of fact that the cottages have been recommended for addition to the National Registry of Historic Places by the NY State Historical Preservation Office. Parks has been ordered by SHPO to protect the stuctures, and so far it appears that the order has been ignored. Ironically, even though Parks Commissioner Benepe has repeatedly stated that he believes the cottages have no historic value, HBO specifically wants to produce its series “Boardwalk Empire” at Cedar Grove because the story takes place in a beachfront community during the 1920s. Obviously the Cedar Grove cottages represent the perfect authentic historic setting in which to film.

###

For more information about this topic, to schedule an interview or to obtain copies of the documents referenced in this release, please don not hesitate to call David Young 516-521-2331 or via email at CGBC1911@gmail.com

Cedar Grove Beach Reopening Delays

A Walk In The Park - February 27, 2011 - By Geoffrey Croft

Cedar Grove Beach Club Turned Into Private Filming Location

A Walk In The Park - February 19, 2011

Second-Class Parks For Park Safety

Although this illustration more than doubles the actual amount of PEP officers available for patrol, it still illustrates the striking disparity between the boroughs. A City Council hearing on this issue was held in April.

City Wide

On any given day, about 700 acres of New York City parkland—almost all of them in Manhattan—are patrolled by 78 parks enforcement officers, close to half of the parks department’s manpower. The remaining 86 officers are left to cover the other 28,000-plus acres, according to City Hall.

The difference in staffing levels comes down to who’s footing the bill: the city or private parks conservancies.

As staffing for the city’s Parks Enforcement Patrol plummets due to an ongoing hiring freeze, a two-tiered system that favors affluent neighborhoods is being thrown into sharp relief. Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Washington Square Park and others are always well staffed, because private associations—not taxpayers—hire PEP officers. While Battery Park has some 30 officers, the entire borough of the Bronx has only 15—and officers say that official figure is higher than the reality.

“Right now there’s three sergeants and two officers,” said one Bronx PEP officer, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, adding that only five officers cover the day shift.

“Because we’re so short-staffed, there’s only one eight-hour tour,” the officer said, “and we respond to the whole borough.”

PEP officers, who are unarmed but can make arrests, respond to both crime and quality-of-life issues, from unruly park-goers to dogs running off-leash to smoking, recently banned in all city parks and beaches. But staff shortages mean that officers in the outer boroughs drive from park to park dealing with complaints assigned by a central office.

“They give false hope to the public,” the Bronx worker said, “because they promise an officer will be posted at a park to handle conditions, and it’s absolutely not true.”

Parks first deputy commissioner Liam Kavanagh attributes the sharp drop in “tax-levied” PEP officers—from around 450 in the mid-1990s to fewer than 100 today—to the hiring freeze put in place in 2009.

“Because the parks enforcement staff tend to be younger and tend to be interested in careers in law enforcement, in general the attrition has been higher within those ranks,” he said.

Kavanagh said the distribution of officers “is based on public use,” and that the privately funded officers help the city by taking those busy parks off their radar.

“I don’t see that as having a disparate impact,” he said.

But while Kavanagh sees no disparity, others do. Queens Community Board 7 chair Eugene Kelty, who represents part of Flushing Meadows Park, said he felt the 1,225-acre park “doesn’t get the attention it really deserves.”

“We’re never going to compete with Manhattan, because that’s the profile borough,” he said. “I would love to see more parks enforcement people, but we just never get the funding for it.… We generate a lot of people going through Flushing Meadows, especially in the summertime, but I don’t think we get the kickback that goes with it, at the enforcement end.”

Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, who chairs the parks committee, held a hearing on the issue in April, and has been told since of rock-bottom patrol numbers.

“I think in the Bronx sometimes they have, like, two officers patrolling all of the borough,” she said. “That’s crazy.”

DC 37 Local 983 vice president Joe Puleo, who represents the PEP officers, said his members were struggling to keep their heads above water.

“What they are doing presently is going to locations and trying to put a quick fix to a problem,” he said. “If there’s graffiti, if they’re lucky they can catch the guy. But they know that nobody’s going to be there on a day-to-day basis.”

All PEP officers go through the same civil service hiring process and are paid the same wages and benefits, whether they serve in a marquee privately funded park or a publicly funded outer-borough park. But in the field, understaffed parks are clearly the ones that need more enforcement, according to one worker who patrolled Hudson River Park for two years and now works in Queens.

“It’s a totally different animal,” the worker said. “Those contract parks have their own issues, but they’re not as severe as the borough issues. It’s 90 percent quality-
of-life stuff. You may get a mugging or two here and there, but not as much as in the outer boroughs.”

With the smoking ban signed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in February, PEP officers could help generate revenue with tickets. But Kavanagh said there’s no chance of that spurring new hiring.

“We issued roughly 8,000 summonses last year for quality-of-life infractions,” he said. “At an average of about $50 a ticket, it would generate $40,000—nothing to sneeze at, but it’s not a revenue stream.”

Geoffrey Croft, president of the New York City Park Advocates and a vocal critic of the disparity, thinks the problem is only going to increase.

“I don’t think anyone is against private funding, helping or subsidizing. But that’s not what’s happening,” he said. “The government is abdicating its responsibilities, which is forcing the public to fund these operations.”

Mark-Viverito shares the sentiment. “It’s not a fair system, unless the intent of the parks department is to try to privatize every park. Not to be cynical, but there’s a level of truth to it, too. That can’t be the solution.”

Read More:

Second-Class Parks

Despite hiring freeze, privately funded parks get more attention

City Hall - June 17, 2011 - By David Sims

Arrests In Union Sq. Park Up 320 %

A Walk In The Park - June 20, 2011 - By Geoffrey Croft

Park Crime Surges - Calls For Increased Security

A Walk In The Park - June 15, 2011 - By Geoffrey Croft

Park Enforcement Officers Say They Need More Personnel

A Walk In The Park - March 13, 2011 - By Geoffrey Croft

NYC Council Hearing Reveals Big Park Enforcement Patrol Disparity

A Walk In The Park - April 29, 2011 - By Geoffrey Croft

Fort Green Park Town Hall Meeting

A meeting is scheduled for Thursday to help address a host of issues facing Fort Green Park, include maintenance and safety concerns. (Photo: Bess Adler/The Brooklyn Paper)

Brooklyn

At Fort Greene Park, the soccer field is a dust bowl, the tennis courts are cracked, and portable toilets have long replaced the broken bathrooms, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

Now the Fort Greene Park Conservancy will host a town hall meeting on Thursday to find solutions to these problems, as well as come up with future projects and programming.

“We want to have as much community input as possible,” said Ruth Goldstein, a founder of the conservancy. “This is our town square and everyone should be involved in what happens here and how it happens.”

Billed as “Hear and Be Heard,” the forum will be the first of several public meetings and invites soccer players, tennis contenders, joggers and anyone else who enjoys the park to share their ideas.

The conservancy will design a master concept — a list of priorities and possible plans — based on the local input and will present it to the Parks Department at a later date. The hope is that the city will adopt a master plan based on the concept.

Goldstein said that the town hall won’t solely focus on park problems, though they will be a major part of the discussion.

One longtime problem area is the grassless, muddy lawn where soccer players host pick-up games.

The players’ cleats contribute to the field’s disintegration, so the conservancy is seeking their feedback on a new dedicated footy area or a possible Astroturf field.

Other grounds in need of fixing include the cracked tennis courts and the visitors center’s bathrooms, which have been replaced with portable toilets since 2009.

Goldstein said that safety will also be a topic. Last month, police officers boosted their patrols in the park after a spate of muggings.

In addition to the gripe session, the conservancy will also introduce its schedule of summer events, including deejay parties, children’s concerts, urban bat tours, jazz performances, and spoken word events.

Fort Greene Park town hall meeting at the Fort Greene Park visitor’s center [Washington Park and Myrtle Avenue, (718) 398-4024], June 23, 6 pm. For info, visit fortgreenepark.org.

Read More:

Fort Greene Town Hall meeting to save Fort Greene Park

The Brooklyn Paper - June 21, 2011 - By Kate Briqelet

Con Ed Finally Agrees To Move Cable Barrier Freeing Up Bronx Kill Waterway

Con Edison has finally agreed to remove concrete-encased cables blocking kayaks and canoes navigating Bronx Kill waterway. (Photo: © Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates

Bronx

The Bronx Kill, a waterway long closed to kayaks and canoes, could become navigable by the end of the year, buoying the spirits of urban paddlers, according to the New York Daily News.

Con Edison cables currently block even small boats from using the narrow strait between the South Bronx and Randalls Island.

But under rising pressure from community groups and local officials, the utility has agreed to remove the cables and open the channel, which connects the East River and the Harlem River.

"Four years of tireless advocacy have paid off," said Harry Bubbins of Friends of Brook Park, calling the Bronx Kill a "tranquil and beautiful waterway."

The concrete-encased Con Ed cables span the strait near the RFK-Triborough Bridge. Only during low tide can canoes and kayaks squeeze under the cables, and then for no more than an hour, said Bubbins.

"They limit recreation and education by prohibiting the safe and easy passage of canoes and kayaks," he said.

But Con Ed is working with the city's Economic Development Corp. to remove the cables.

It recently built a trestle between the South Bronx and Randalls Island that will hold new cables and support a pedestrian and bicycle pathway, helping Bronx residents access Randalls Island.

Con Ed wouldn't set a time line for removing old cables, but Bubbins expects them to be gone within a year.

"We will continue to coordinate with Con Ed on the removal of the old conduit structure," said EDC spokesman Kyle Sklerov, calling the pathway a "key link in the city's greenway system."

Construction on the pathway is slated to begin next year.

Kayaks and canoes can already float from the East River to the Harlem River using the Hell Gate strait south of Randalls Island. But the route is less sheltered than the Bronx Kill and the water there is more turbulent.

Rob Buchanan, co-founder of the NYC Water Trail Association, called the planned Bronx Kill opening a "significant victory" andan outgrowth of the NYC Water Trail, a 2007 project that mapped local canoe and kayak launches and routes.

"The Bronx Kill is a really unique urban waterway that's very protected and kind of swirls through a bucolic landscape of green," said Buchanan. "It connects the Harlem River and the East River in a practical way."

He said the Water Trail Association hopes locals who learn to boat as kids will protect the city's waterways when they grow up.

Friends of Brook Park, in Mott Haven, leads kids on paddle tours to promote exercise and awareness of the environment.

Read More:

Urban Kayakers gain victory with Con Ed agreeing to move cable barricade at Bronx Kill by year's end

New York Daily News - June 21, 2011 - By Daniel Beekman

Daily Show Examines Park Smoking Ban Impact In Union Square's Methadone Alley

Last night The Daily Show's awesome Samantha Bee reported on the NYC parks smoking ban from Union Square park, where she ironically juxtaposed the health-conscious smoking ban against the rather unhealthy realities of the park's "methadone alley," according to the gothamist.

After shot after shot of stumbling, spaced-out drug addicts upstage her interviews with anti-smoking advocates, Bee finally asks, "You know what else inhibits my enjoyment of the park? This giant undulating pile of human sorrow. I have to go home at the end of being in this park and scrub myself with a metal barbecue brush just to get all the sadness off. Are you fucking kidding me? Smoking?"

On the other hand, Bee is fair and balanced enough to confront a smoking scofflaw and demand to know "how are all those addicts behind you supposed to tweak properly with all of your secondhand smoke blowing in their face?"

View More:

Video: Daily Show Examines Park Smoking Ban Impact In Union Square's Methadone Alley

gothamist - June 21, 2011 - By John Del Signore

Arrests In Union Sq. Park Up 320 %

A Walk In The Park - June 20, 2011 - By Geoffrey Croft

Park Crime Surges - Calls For Increased Security

A Walk In The Park - June 15, 2011 - By Geoffrey Croft