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Colonel Young Park in Harlem, now in utter disrepair, needs to be upgraded, and the Friends of Colonel Young Park are on the verge of producing such an improvement in a key piece of Harlem park space.
Colonel Young Park
Colonel Charles Young was the first African American to obtain the rank of Colonel in the US Army, and his trailblazing standard of excellence and his nearly 30 years of service to his country are recognized through the naming of a Harlem Park at 143rd and Lenox in his honor.
Colonel Young Park is now dangerous and dilapidated from a lack of maintenance.
The Friends of Colonel Young Park are focused on improving Colonel Young Park and maintaining the park after it is upgraded to be the best youth baseball/softball facility in the United States.
Upgrading Colonel Young Park
The Friends of Colonel Young Park have obtained commitments for nearly $3 million of the estimated $4 million cost of upgrading Colonel Young Park. Those commitments come from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Council Member Inez Dickens of Harlem with the support of the New York City Council Black and Latino Caucus. The children of Harlem deserve the best facilities possible, and such an improvement is now within reach.
Press Coverage
The fight to improve Colonel Young Park has received the focus of DNA Info and of cable TV channel New York 1.
From DNA Info:
"When his oldest son turned 13 and wanted to start playing competitive baseball, Gregg Walker realized it was going to take a little ingenuity on his part. There weren't many baseball field options in Harlem. The only regulation-sized grass field with the standard 90 feet between the base pads is located at Colonel Young Park on West 143rd Street and Lenox Avenue, and is in horrible condition after years of neglect.
Despite a Parks Department renovation a few years ago that fixed its lights and fences, the grass at the park remained pocked with dangerous holes on the mound and in the field of play. Football teams tear up the grass when using the field for running and training, adult leagues play softball there, and others use the space for frequent barbecues and leave their trash behind.
"There weren't a lot of places where high quality baseball was being played," said Walker, 40, a senior vice president at Sony who helped create the Friends of Colonel Young Park with a goal of creating two or more first-class grass regulation-sized baseball fields at the central Harlem facility. "Our goal was to not just do something decent. We wanted regulation fields that are the envy of all. People in Connecticut should be fighting to play our kids on these fields," added Walker, who founded the Black Yankees in 2006 to give kids in Harlem the chance to play competitive organized baseball.
The Parks Department agreed with the plan, said Walker, but said they did not have money in their budget to complete the necessary renovations. In order to construct and maintain the field, the group would need to raise $4 million, a tall order.
Three years later, the group has $2.75 million committed from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Harlem Councilwoman Inez Dickens and the city council's Black and Latino Caucus."
New York 1 also focused on efforts to improve Colonel Young Park.
Please Help
Please contact the Friends of Colonel Young Park at gregg@greggwalker.com to assist the efforts to make Colonel Young Park into the best youth baseball/softball destination in our country.
Showing posts with label Parks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parks. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2012
Monday, September 6, 2010
Artifical Turf on Trial in NYC
The City Limits September 2010 issue focuses on New York City's shift away from grass athletic fields in its parks to artificial turf. NYC spent $300 million over 12 years building artificial turf fields in its parks, and that investment may have been a mistake. We encourage you to purchase the September issue of City Limits and absorb the detailed investigation and analysis it contains.
Dangerous Conditions
City Limits begins with a look at the decaying conditions of the turf fields that NYC has installed in recent years. The $300 million was invested in approximately 200 fields, and approximately half of the fields analyzed by City Limits were found to be unacceptably dangerous because of a lack of maintenance. City Limits found "gaps, tears, and holes forming obvious trip hazards."
In Upper Manhattan, City Limits discovered that the artificial turf fields within Riverside Park were in good condition but that Eugene McCabe Field on the east side had a large sinkhole. On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, City Limits determined that Baruch Playground was in poor condition and was dangerous for those making use of it.
Purchaser of City Limits will benefit from an in-depth look at the impact of the lack of maintenance of NYC's artificial turf fields.
Lack of Resources
After reaching a high of nearly eight-tenths of one percent of the New York City budget in 1988, the spending on our parks has fallen now to its lowest point at approximately four-tenths of one percent. Our city spends less per capita on its parks than nearly all of the other largest cities in the United States, but our city actually has a larger percentage of its land devoted to parks than nearly all of those cities.
Also, while the headcount of the Parks Department is growing, it is still far below the levels it achieved in the 1980's, when the overall New York City budget was far smaller.
For our fields, both artificial and natural grass, we need a strong Parks Department with adequate resources and personnel. To the extent that the massive investment in artificial fields was driven by a desire to reduce annual maintenance costs, the calculations have proven to be flawed. Artificial fields needs greater maintenance and attention than natural grass, and we need to support an increase in the resources of the Parks Department in order to create safe and enjoyable public spaces for athletic activities, irrespective of whether the fields are made of grass or synthetic materials.
Artificial Turf's Health Risks
Even when an artificial field is properly maintained, it brings dangers that natural grass fields do not.
New York City uses a type of artificial turf that utilizes ground tires to simulate dirt and create a softer cushion in and around the artificial grass. But, those tires can contain dangerous chemicals and high levels of lead. Tires are not designed for children to lie on them or play with them for hours each week.
The artificial field in Upper Manhattan at Thomas Jefferson Park had to be removed because it had lead levels that exceeded the acceptable limits set by the EPA. In some parts of the field, the lead levels were four times higher than the EPA limit.
While New York City has declared that all of its artificial fields are safe (now that the Thomas Jefferson Park Field has been replaced), City Limits found that 23 fields had levels that exceed the limits set by California for its fields. There are also critics who claim that New York City's testing approach is flawed in that it averages the results of multiple samples from a given artificial field instead of accepting that "hot spots" of lead contamination that exceed the EPA limit need to be addressed even if the average lead level from multiple samples is within EPA guidelines.
Buy City Limits and Advocate for More Resources for the NYC Parks Department
We encourage you to purchase the September issue of City Limits and use the information to advocate for greater investment in our city's parks as well as a renewed appreciation for the superiority of natural green grass over synthetic field surfaces.
Dangerous Conditions
City Limits begins with a look at the decaying conditions of the turf fields that NYC has installed in recent years. The $300 million was invested in approximately 200 fields, and approximately half of the fields analyzed by City Limits were found to be unacceptably dangerous because of a lack of maintenance. City Limits found "gaps, tears, and holes forming obvious trip hazards."
In Upper Manhattan, City Limits discovered that the artificial turf fields within Riverside Park were in good condition but that Eugene McCabe Field on the east side had a large sinkhole. On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, City Limits determined that Baruch Playground was in poor condition and was dangerous for those making use of it.
Purchaser of City Limits will benefit from an in-depth look at the impact of the lack of maintenance of NYC's artificial turf fields.
Lack of Resources
After reaching a high of nearly eight-tenths of one percent of the New York City budget in 1988, the spending on our parks has fallen now to its lowest point at approximately four-tenths of one percent. Our city spends less per capita on its parks than nearly all of the other largest cities in the United States, but our city actually has a larger percentage of its land devoted to parks than nearly all of those cities.
Also, while the headcount of the Parks Department is growing, it is still far below the levels it achieved in the 1980's, when the overall New York City budget was far smaller.
For our fields, both artificial and natural grass, we need a strong Parks Department with adequate resources and personnel. To the extent that the massive investment in artificial fields was driven by a desire to reduce annual maintenance costs, the calculations have proven to be flawed. Artificial fields needs greater maintenance and attention than natural grass, and we need to support an increase in the resources of the Parks Department in order to create safe and enjoyable public spaces for athletic activities, irrespective of whether the fields are made of grass or synthetic materials.
Artificial Turf's Health Risks
Even when an artificial field is properly maintained, it brings dangers that natural grass fields do not.
New York City uses a type of artificial turf that utilizes ground tires to simulate dirt and create a softer cushion in and around the artificial grass. But, those tires can contain dangerous chemicals and high levels of lead. Tires are not designed for children to lie on them or play with them for hours each week.
The artificial field in Upper Manhattan at Thomas Jefferson Park had to be removed because it had lead levels that exceeded the acceptable limits set by the EPA. In some parts of the field, the lead levels were four times higher than the EPA limit.
While New York City has declared that all of its artificial fields are safe (now that the Thomas Jefferson Park Field has been replaced), City Limits found that 23 fields had levels that exceed the limits set by California for its fields. There are also critics who claim that New York City's testing approach is flawed in that it averages the results of multiple samples from a given artificial field instead of accepting that "hot spots" of lead contamination that exceed the EPA limit need to be addressed even if the average lead level from multiple samples is within EPA guidelines.
Buy City Limits and Advocate for More Resources for the NYC Parks Department
We encourage you to purchase the September issue of City Limits and use the information to advocate for greater investment in our city's parks as well as a renewed appreciation for the superiority of natural green grass over synthetic field surfaces.
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