Saturday, November 04, 2000
Parks Dept wants a kiosk in Stuyvesant Square Park, residents protest
By M.C. Dobelis
The Stuyvesant Square Park, once more, is targeted for the installation of a permanent food concession. On September 19 the Department of Parks and Recreation presented to Community Board Six a Request For Proposal (RFP) for an outdoors cafe, the operation to be based in an abandoned comfort station in the East Park that is to be converted into a kiosk, surrounded by tables and chairs. An answer in 30 days was requested.
Because of time pressure, the normal committee hearings process was shortcut, and the Board reviewed the request in its regular full October meeting. It rejected the RFP, reiterating its resolution of May 2000, which recommended the return of the comfort station to its original use, and expressed its reservations about the continuing "privatization" of public parks.
Board Six found numerous errors in the RFP, which alleges that the city bought the park in 1836 (it was given to the city by a deed of the Stuyvesant family), infers that the 1846 historic iron fence was restored in 1988 (the East Park fence was not touched, and keeps deteriorating), and ignores the legal requirement that any changes to a landmarked park (SSP is part of the Stuyvesant Square Historic District) must be approved by the Art Commission and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. It draws attention to a hot-dog vendor franchise, operating from a cart, in a manner appropriate and authorized in historic parks, which has been awarded in the park for the past six yearsIt also notes that while tobacco products are excluded in the RFP, alcohol is not.
The Board Six resolution was nearly unanimous, prompted by protests of neighborhood residents and members of the Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association. Jack Taylor, board member of the latter, has alerted the two commissions of the RFP, and Bernard and Pauline Goodman have taken their protest directly to Parks and Recreation Comissioner Henry Stern, who, as reported, intends to proceed with the RFP, and has declined to meet with the protesters in person..
The activists see the food kiosk concession as an encroachment on public space, inhibiting the public use of the park. Members of Board Six also see it as an attempt to exclude the affected public from decisions about the use of parks.
The dispute started in March 23, when Eric Petterson, a Stuyvesant Park resident and owner of three local restaurants (including Luna Park, which is operated inside the Union Square Park), invited Parks officials and a few neighborhood activists, including some SPNA and Beth Israel representatives, to discuss a concession, based on the pattern of the Bryant Park kiosk and tables.
Board Six, which had been ignored, in May issued a resolution opposing any such concession. Subsequently, Commissioner Stern promised that "the entire civilized world will have its say before anything is done... and that includes the Landmarks Commission and the Arts Commission.. and, definitely, Board Six will have its bite of the apple," as reported in the New York Times. Mr. Pettersen has repeatedly stated that he has no financial interest in the proposed concession, and is solely concerned with improving the park.
The question has been asked - why not have a cheerful kiosk that will dress up a dark park, and add to its use? The SPNA, whose members labor and raise funds every year since the 1968, to maintain the plantings and pay for extra help (two years ago it gave Parks Department a lump sum grant of $10,000 for bushes, most of which died, unattended, in a drought) has experiences in this matter. For years the parks attracted a huge destructive methadone clinic and drug crowd who used it as a club, causing residents to shy away from their only green space. Then St. George’s Episcopal Church curtailed its well-intentioned daily free lunch distribution, to concentrate on rehabilitation, the police started to pay more attention to the illegal activities, and the park was rehabilitated. An attractive food kiosk with outdoors tables may just re-initiate the deterioration, to the loss of the neighborhood and residents. Further, the demographics and economy of the area do not provide for a volume of operations that will support a well policed and cleaned food court. Our hospital visitors do not compare with the flow of the fast-food office crowd of Bryant Park. The bagel and coffee carts just outside the hospitals, and the hospital cafeterias take care of their immediate needs. As for the benign attention of the underfunded Parks Department, it took them four years to replace a section of the park’s fence destroyed by a taxi cab, and the rehabilitation of the East Park’s historic fence has been stalled since 1988. Why doesn’t the currently rich economy of this city provide for the preservation of its treasures?
Carol Schachter, president of the SPNA, reminds us that November 3 is the fifth anniversary of the death of Rex Wassermann, the landscape architect who led the restoration of the West Park fence, at a time when the city had less money than it does now. To the people who scoff at such efforts when the US education system is deteriorating and people in the 3rd World are starving, note that the falling apart of the physical plant underlies the destruction of everything else. I was not the only person who had doubts about the continued revival of 14th Street when Con Ed stopped maintaining its clocks and Zeckendorf Towers let the subway escalators sit idle (both of the above are now coming back in operation).
The Goodmans, with the aid of other community leaders, including Sylvia Friedman of Board Six, the sponsor of the May resolution, are organizing a public meeting with Commissioner Stern, in which members of the public will have an opportunity to express their feelings about the food kiosk, date and place to be announced. Meanwhile, local City Councilperson Margarita Lopez ( 2nd CD) has written to the Parks Department, opposing the issuance of the RFP without an input from the residents, and Andrew Berman, chief of staff for State Senator Thomas K. Duane ( 27TH SD), is reviewing the paperwork. The green original wooden doors of the kiosk have been recently replaced by inappropriate metal ones, and a Violation Report is in the process of being filed with the Landmatrks Preservation Commission.
The Stuyvesant Square Park, once more, is targeted for the installation of a permanent food concession. On September 19 the Department of Parks and Recreation presented to Community Board Six a Request For Proposal (RFP) for an outdoors cafe, the operation to be based in an abandoned comfort station in the East Park that is to be converted into a kiosk, surrounded by tables and chairs. An answer in 30 days was requested.
Because of time pressure, the normal committee hearings process was shortcut, and the Board reviewed the request in its regular full October meeting. It rejected the RFP, reiterating its resolution of May 2000, which recommended the return of the comfort station to its original use, and expressed its reservations about the continuing "privatization" of public parks.
Board Six found numerous errors in the RFP, which alleges that the city bought the park in 1836 (it was given to the city by a deed of the Stuyvesant family), infers that the 1846 historic iron fence was restored in 1988 (the East Park fence was not touched, and keeps deteriorating), and ignores the legal requirement that any changes to a landmarked park (SSP is part of the Stuyvesant Square Historic District) must be approved by the Art Commission and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. It draws attention to a hot-dog vendor franchise, operating from a cart, in a manner appropriate and authorized in historic parks, which has been awarded in the park for the past six yearsIt also notes that while tobacco products are excluded in the RFP, alcohol is not.
The Board Six resolution was nearly unanimous, prompted by protests of neighborhood residents and members of the Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association. Jack Taylor, board member of the latter, has alerted the two commissions of the RFP, and Bernard and Pauline Goodman have taken their protest directly to Parks and Recreation Comissioner Henry Stern, who, as reported, intends to proceed with the RFP, and has declined to meet with the protesters in person..
The activists see the food kiosk concession as an encroachment on public space, inhibiting the public use of the park. Members of Board Six also see it as an attempt to exclude the affected public from decisions about the use of parks.
The dispute started in March 23, when Eric Petterson, a Stuyvesant Park resident and owner of three local restaurants (including Luna Park, which is operated inside the Union Square Park), invited Parks officials and a few neighborhood activists, including some SPNA and Beth Israel representatives, to discuss a concession, based on the pattern of the Bryant Park kiosk and tables.
Board Six, which had been ignored, in May issued a resolution opposing any such concession. Subsequently, Commissioner Stern promised that "the entire civilized world will have its say before anything is done... and that includes the Landmarks Commission and the Arts Commission.. and, definitely, Board Six will have its bite of the apple," as reported in the New York Times. Mr. Pettersen has repeatedly stated that he has no financial interest in the proposed concession, and is solely concerned with improving the park.
The question has been asked - why not have a cheerful kiosk that will dress up a dark park, and add to its use? The SPNA, whose members labor and raise funds every year since the 1968, to maintain the plantings and pay for extra help (two years ago it gave Parks Department a lump sum grant of $10,000 for bushes, most of which died, unattended, in a drought) has experiences in this matter. For years the parks attracted a huge destructive methadone clinic and drug crowd who used it as a club, causing residents to shy away from their only green space. Then St. George’s Episcopal Church curtailed its well-intentioned daily free lunch distribution, to concentrate on rehabilitation, the police started to pay more attention to the illegal activities, and the park was rehabilitated. An attractive food kiosk with outdoors tables may just re-initiate the deterioration, to the loss of the neighborhood and residents. Further, the demographics and economy of the area do not provide for a volume of operations that will support a well policed and cleaned food court. Our hospital visitors do not compare with the flow of the fast-food office crowd of Bryant Park. The bagel and coffee carts just outside the hospitals, and the hospital cafeterias take care of their immediate needs. As for the benign attention of the underfunded Parks Department, it took them four years to replace a section of the park’s fence destroyed by a taxi cab, and the rehabilitation of the East Park’s historic fence has been stalled since 1988. Why doesn’t the currently rich economy of this city provide for the preservation of its treasures?
Carol Schachter, president of the SPNA, reminds us that November 3 is the fifth anniversary of the death of Rex Wassermann, the landscape architect who led the restoration of the West Park fence, at a time when the city had less money than it does now. To the people who scoff at such efforts when the US education system is deteriorating and people in the 3rd World are starving, note that the falling apart of the physical plant underlies the destruction of everything else. I was not the only person who had doubts about the continued revival of 14th Street when Con Ed stopped maintaining its clocks and Zeckendorf Towers let the subway escalators sit idle (both of the above are now coming back in operation).
The Goodmans, with the aid of other community leaders, including Sylvia Friedman of Board Six, the sponsor of the May resolution, are organizing a public meeting with Commissioner Stern, in which members of the public will have an opportunity to express their feelings about the food kiosk, date and place to be announced. Meanwhile, local City Councilperson Margarita Lopez ( 2nd CD) has written to the Parks Department, opposing the issuance of the RFP without an input from the residents, and Andrew Berman, chief of staff for State Senator Thomas K. Duane ( 27TH SD), is reviewing the paperwork. The green original wooden doors of the kiosk have been recently replaced by inappropriate metal ones, and a Violation Report is in the process of being filed with the Landmatrks Preservation Commission.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:05 AM 
