By Matt Chaban 10/01/12 10:14am

Road Rage

7 Photos

Central Parking

Central Parking: DOT Cuts Down on Car Lanes to Make More Room for Joggers, Bikers

Cycling in Central Park has gotten a lot of attention of late following a few nasty accidents and a campaign by the Daily News—repeated every few years—where intrepid reporters venture into the park, speed guns in hand, to make a stink about scofflaw bikers breaking the 25 mile per hour speed limit. (Hell, if you can get going that fast, that is pretty impressive.)

This is not to suggest that unsafe cycling is ever acceptable, but as more people take to bikes, and the city’s population continues to grow, park pathways are bound to get busier. Action by users is important, but also be operators.

As it has done with Prospect Park, following another spate of high-profile injuries, the city’s Department of Transporation and Parks Department have reached an agreement to change the arrangement of traffic lanes to make more room for bikes and runners and less for vehicles. The measure is meant to make everyone safer. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/20/12 2:32pm

Gettin' High Line

Change on the tracks. (Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Bloomberg to High Line Haters: Cities Change, Get Over It

The High Line. Rejuvenator of neighborhoods, destroyer of neighborhoods.

Those are basically the two media narratives surrounding the elevated park on Manhattan’s West Side, which just held the groundbreaking for its third and final phase today. Most of the attention in the past has been on how great the design-y new park is, but as locals learn to live with the millions of visitors who flock to the park each year, some of them have started to complain, most notably in the Op-Ed pages of the Times, that the High Line has actually ruined, or at least Disneyfied, the neighborhoods surrounding it.

Asked about these changes today, Mayor Bloomberg did not necessarily disagree with the situation, just the sentiment. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/11/12 3:41pm

Greensward

5 Photos

Open Space, Now Transmitting in Greenpoint

At Transmitter Park Opening, New Commissioner Veronica White Prefers Ribbon Cutting to Information Sharing

Big, fluffy Bob Ross clouds hung over the Manhattan skyline yesterday afternoon, in full view from one of the best vantage points in the city to view them: Greenpoint’s new Transmitter Park. Almost perfectly parallel with the Empire State Building, the park provides an unparalleled panorama of Midtown and the rest of Manhattan.

Mayor Bloomberg and his Parks Commissioner Veronica White had crossed the river not only to take in the scene but also cut the ribbon on the 1.6-acre, $12 million project. It was Ms. White‘s first official public appearance after replacing Adrian Benepe, who had been in the job since 2001. It was her coming out, if a quiet one, with limited fanfare and few workers. Just another day on the job.

“Our administration has been revitalizing old infrastructure and recasting it in new ways that makes sense for New Yorkers today,” the mayor said proudly, pointing to the success of other projects like the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park as well.

But unlike those open space developments, heralded the world over, the waterfront of Williamsburg and Greenpoint has long languished. Read More

By Sarah Grothjan 7/06/12 1:04pm

Greensward

When a tree falls in Central Park, everybody hears about it.

Parks Department Budget Spared From Pruning, Now The Trees Will Get It

Looks like the leafy canopy in Central Park will finally receive a much-needed trim, thanks to the City Council’s decision to more than double the budget for tree pruning.

The council added $2 million to the existing $1.45 million budget to be used for snipping the park’s overgrown limbs, The New York Times reports. The additional money was part of $30 million in last-minute funding restored to the Parks Department’s budget after citizens and council members cried out against the proposed cuts. Read More

By Matt Chaban 3/13/12 6:40pm

Sodom by the Sea

Endangered species. (Getty)

Bloomberg’s Luna Sea: Tears and Jeers at the Coney Island Boardwalk Vote

“My name is Michael Greco, and I am a direct descendent of the Greco Romans.” Mr. Greco stood before an overflow crowd in a fluorescent-lit conference room on the fifth floor of 253 Broadway on Monday afternoon, for an otherwise routine meeting of the Public Design Commission. “They built roads, bridges, aqueducts, great structures. My ancestors would be rolling in their grave if they saw this.”

To the 50 or so people packed into the conference room with Mr. Greco, the Rigelmann Boardwalk on Coney Island is their modern day Apian Way, and the New York City Parks Department is a band of marauding Visigoths. Instead of pickaxes and torches, the city is attacking with slabs of concrete and faux wood beams made from recycled plastic. Read More

By Krista Carter 2/02/12 11:44am

Greensward

Storm damage in Grand Army Plaza. (CP Conservancy)

A Million Trees Too Many? City Greenery Program Hits Some Knots

It seems that the prayers of Dr. Seuss’ lovable Lorax are finally being answered—in the form of MillionTreesNYC. But like all things, it comes at a cost.

Having recently reached its halfway point of planting 500,000 trees in October 2011 (a year ahead of schedule), MillionTreesNYC now faces its biggest obstacle yet: the U.S. economy. Just as nearly every other industry’s budget and workforce are being trimmed, the greenery program is no exception, according to City Limits. Read More

By Stephen Duffy 11/30/11 6:13pm

Greensward

Looks like fun. (Spencer Tucker)

When Some Blacktop and Monkey Bars Will Do

One of the cornerstones of the Bloomberg administration’s PlaNYC 2030 was ensuring every New Yorker lived within 10 minutes of a park. That is tricky, real estate being the valuable commodity that it is, so building new parks is not always easy—we had to construct one on a derelict railway, for godsakes!

So the administration came up with the clever idea of opening up city schoolyards to the community after school. Today in Jackson Heights, Mayor Bloomberg and the Parks Department celebrated the 200th playground opening. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/15/11 10:11am

Occupy Wall Street

Protest art!

Why Do Vendors Get Tents in Parks and Not Occupy Wall Street?

Robert Lederman, a crusading artist and a bit of crank who was a frequent antagonist of Mayor Giuliani, thinks the Bloomberg administration is being two-faced in expelling the Occupy Wall Street protestors tents from Zuccotti Park. He points to tents set up for holiday markets as the unjust, commercial expropriation of public space.

The holiday vendors have permits, of course, and a portion of their proceeds goes to the parks they occupy, so there appears to be a public good here, whatever your opinion of overpriced tchokes. Mr. Lederman has his own agenda, as he has run afoul of the city for trying to sell art in parks without permits. Still, his thoughts, which he just emailed around, are intriguing in light of last night’s events. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/31/11 10:34am

Greensward

Ruffling Ruppert's feathers. (NYC Parks Advocates)

Related Irradiates Ruppert Playground to Win Over Pols

As The Observer recently chronicled, the East Side of Manhattan is so starved for parkland, locals will do just about anything to hold onto every blade of grass and monkey bar. At Ruppert Playground, neighbors have been fighting the powerful Related Companies, which is preparing to replace the open space with a new apartment tower possibly reaching 40 stories.

The developer has every right to do so, as it built the playground three decades ago and only had to keep it open through 2008. This has not kept those on the block and their elected officials from fighting the plan, but now Related seems to have found its secret weapon: photon rays! Read More