(Getty)

Turns out the Great GoogaMooga might not be so great for Prospect Park.

For the second straight year, Brooklynites are up in arms about the condition of Prospect Park following the food festival.

Tire tracks, dead grass and patches of dirt are all that remains of the once lush area that played host to the event. Outraged residents blame farm equipment and the heavy platforms used in the production of the festival that shut the park down to the public for two weeks leading up to it.

The event lasted for two of the three scheduled days due to inclement weather. Two days were enough to cause damage, and the rain didn't do much to help the condition of the park.

“It’s only going to get worse because of the rain,” said Geoffrey Croft, president of the New York City Park Advocates told Brooklyn Paper. He also told the Brooklyn Paper that the cost of repairs to the park would completely offset the  $75,000 rental fee.  “It’s just not worth it” Mr. Croft lamented.

Organizers have just finished cleaning up the second annual festival, which featured 85 New York restaurant stands as well as live music (Matt and Kim headlined the event).

The Prospect Park Alliance, the group in charge of upkeep of the park, has been busy documenting the damages done after the festival, and plans to send it to the sponsor, Superfly Presents.

A representative from Superfly told the Brooklyn Paper they will fix any damage caused by the event, and “It’s a top priority of Superfly’s to restore the park from any damage caused by the festival.”

Tree damage in Prospect Park. (Prospect Park Alliance)

On Sunday, it was fun to settle in at home with popcorn and movies. On Monday, the hurricane hit, a frightening and fraught time. On Tuesday, the city took stock of the devastation. On Wednesday, well, Wednesday was the beginning of many frustrations: frustrations with ongoing power outages, frustrations with being cooped up for yet another day, frustrations with working from home, school cancellations extending through the end of the week, and the difficulty of borough-to-borough travel.

In the midst of these frustrations, the many islands of green scattered across the five boroughs started to seem very, very tempting. A tantalizing emerald escape from stuffy apartments, boredom and the tedium of days stretching ahead. The only problem is that New York City parks are closed, for fear of falling branches and dangerous debris, until at least Saturday morning. Not that the barricades and ominous signs posted at the entrances were enough to stop the many outlaw walkers, runners, bicyclists and parents desperate for a breath of fresh air. On Wednesday morning, The Observer wandered into Fort Greene park, scooting past a whirring wood chipper at the entrance to find dog walkers, parents pushing strollers, precocious tots climbing on freshly cut logs and runners hungrily sucking in the suddenly cool autumn air. Workers were working to dismantle a huge tree splintered in three sections at the base of the hill, a dead bird was crushed into the muddy path around the perimeter of the park, and one mother was pointing out the felled tree to her son, but most of the frolicking Brooklynites seemed oblivious. In fact, it was busier than a Saturday in early September.

On Thursday afternoon, Prospect Park was decidedly quieter, with a parks employee stationed at the Grand Army Plaza entrance turning away cyclists and runners. But almost as many were streaming out of the park behind her. And at Prospect Park West and Third Street, streams of people scurried past a barricade that had been unceremoniously swept to one side. Just beyond the stone fence, a group of flannel-clad hipsters picnicked on a blanket beneath the swaying tree branches.

Many runners were dutifully sprinting around the perimeter of the park, but beyond the fallen trees and stumps, The Observer could see bicyclists whirring around the loop and dog walkers distractedly gazing into the distance as their pets sniffed the freshly disturbed foliage. On the western side, a runner who had circled half the park on the exterior sidewalk spotted a discreet opening in the stone wall and after looking around furtively, disappeared into the brush.

A Parks Department spokesperson admitted that some scofflaws have been ignoring the barricades and signs, but noted that parks employees and barricades are blocking a number of parks entrances. The Central Park Conservancy, which is rushing to clear the park before Sunday's marathon, estimates that some 250 mature trees are uprooted or compromised and on its website begs everyone "to help the Conservancy by staying out of the Park until further notice." The Parks Department has also scheduled volunteer work days on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But in a city where so much more pressing work remains to be done, with resources allocated to cleanup rather than policing, the policy at most parks is, by default, enter at your own risk. And it's a risk that many New Yorkers, especially those burning with cabin fever, are apparently willing to take.

kvelsey@observer.com

Here are our very favorite New York–area summer camps.

Manhattan living, but in Brooklyn

Things may have looked bleak during the recession for On Prospect Park, but the tower's most expensive penthouse has finally sold for $5.1 million, just as everyone knew it eventually would.

Are boom times here again? Well, when it comes to gentrification in Brooklyn, Prospect Heights in particular, it's not a question of if but when, and Prospect Heights was already pretty far gone when the sleek tower was just a rough sketch in Richard Meier's head. Even if The New York Times did call the starchitect-designed condo "a wall of windows into the real estate bust" back in 2009.

Never-before-occupied penthouse 16S was the most expensive condo on the market and the $5.1 million sale (at ask, but maybe not original ask) sets the record for On Prospect Park (known to the postal service as 1 Grand Army Plaza). The next highest sale was another penthouse—there are five—that went for $3.9 million last winter. That was eclipsed just yesterday by the sale of penthouse 16N, which Brownstoner reported sold for $4.9 million, though today's sale of the neighboring unit now bests that.

So who bought this shiny, many-windowed, prodigiously-terraced 3,500-square foot penthouse? The clandestine KFRC Brooklyn LLC., that's who. And KFRC may live in a glass-walled house, that doesn't mean he/she/they wants to be seen.

Corcoran Sunshine listing broker Cheryl Nielson-Saaf told us that she had to keep absolutely mum on the buyers when we reached her on the phone. The project is now being brokered by Brown Harris Stevens, as well.

Perhaps it's a Manhattan ex-pat frustrated by ever-rising rents? Or a Brooklynite who wants the ease of doormen and swimming pools rather than trudging up and down the stairs of some quaint brownstone?

In any event, the buyer will be getting a master bedroom suite with views of the harbor and its own private terrace, as well as a living/dining room and kitchen that span over 50 feet with balconies and terraces across the full width. There's also a huge private roof terrace, where you can sit among your lovely greenery and gaze out at the greenery of Prospect Park.

Plus, at 75 percent full, the building's no longer the ghost town it once was.

kvelsey@observer.com

In the interest of full disclosure, I was eating a pint of ice cream—well, gelato—when I received my weekly PSP digest, which was otherwise a lovely and harmless collection of stories about people getting help spying on their nannies using iPhone apps, or choosing the right Jewish day school, that read like an ever-so-slightly ethnic Nicholas Sparks novel. But when I got to the blast about the the ice cream incident, I pushed back my stracciatella in shame.

It all started when someone posting under the innocuous-enough pen name “Sarah” emailed the list serve with her plight: “We were at 9th Street playground... and two different people came into the actual playground with ice cream/Italian ice push carts... I left with a crying 4 year old because I would not let him get ice cream...” “Sarah” then wondered if the vendors were even legal, prompting a self-described “curmudgeon” named Crystal to opine, “We could list other illegal activities in the playgrounds... public urination, selling drugs... And yet... unlicensed food carts... are somehow more acceptable?”

Now, normally things named Crystal disagree with me—crystal meth, Crystal Pepsi, that natural deodorant that looks like the lovechild of a golf ball and Troy from Out of This World—but this one really struck a chord.

When I was coming of age in the early nineties, I wasn’t allowed to walk in Prospect Park alone due to the likelihood of running into a heroin pusher or a Crip; who knew it could get so much worse, so fast? That the sound of the Mister Softee jingle—a cloying riff on “Pop Goes the Weasel,” itself an incredibly threatening nursery rhyme when you think about it—would become tantamount to Peter Lorre’s creepy pedophilic whistling in M?

A lot of people have gotten upset over the suggestion that frozen treat purveyors should be outlawed from peddling their popsicles during spring and summer, their busiest seasons, and use this kerfuffle as yet another excuse to bash what one Gothamist commenter called Park Slope’s “whiny bitchass” parents.

Here, however, I must disagree. In fact, I’ll take it a step further. Why limit the ban to mobile carts? I can’t count how many times I pass Ample Hills Creamery, the popular ice cream spot on my corner, and flash forward to the day when my son will demand a cup of the small-batch brand’s “Salted Crack Caramel,” so named for the diabetes-courting mixture of saltines, butter, sugar and chocolate mixed in to the base flavor.

I’m already working with my life coach to prepare for the first time I’ll have to deny my child pleasure; to see his angelic little face redden, his rosebud lips twisting into a grimace as he experiences soul-shredding rejection for the first time.

But honestly, what about toy stores? Pet stores? Restaurants that carelessly leave Dixie cups full of tempting crayons out on their tables, forcing me to sternly remind my son that he is not the next Basquiat? What of the artisanal mayonnaise store opening mere blocks from my apartment? I shudder to think of a beautiful day of bonding ruined when my child stops in his tracks, hurls his ciabatta BLT to the sidewalk and pleads with me to buy him a tub of white-truffle mayo to bring out the flavor of the house-smoked heritage bacon. Oscar Wilde was so right when he wrote, “I can resist anything except temptation.” And it’s everywhere.

(Incidentally, to those judgmental dictators who implore, in the parlance of Nancy Reagan, that parents just say “no”: We don’t say “the N word” in my house. Instead we say, “Whatever would mean the most to you emotionally,” while making the sign language gesture for “freedom”.)

I think it’s interesting that the Hester Prynne of this urban fable, the PSP-er identified only as “Sarah,” limited her complaint to vendors in the playgrounds, when deep down we all know the playgrounds themselves are the real problem. How many times has a perfectly good walk in the park been sullied when a child stops short, unable to resist the siren song (banshee shriek is more like it) of the tire swing, that staph infection on chains that calls to mind something pulled out of the Tin Man’s rotting S&M dungeon. Or the mealy, festering sandbox? And don’t even get me started on slides. Did Chutes and Ladders teach us nothing? How will squeaking down a white-hot gauntlet of gnarled metal help my son get into Dalton?

For Christmas last year my father had the audacity to give my son the Fisher Price Chatter Telephone! In addition to confusing a post-millennial child with its obscenely large handset and alien rotary dial, its “pull cord” might as well have arrived from the factory tied in a noose.

Oh, and newsflash to the 16 people who gave the Play-Doh Fun Factory a five-star rating on Amazon: it’s not so “fun” for kids with celiac disease and a penchant for eating brightly-colored clay, or for young foodies who want to learn to make a decent hand-cut tagliatelle. Sheesh.

These things—these fripperies—may seem as harmless as a soft-serve cone, but as we now see, even that is a trauma waiting to happen.

And what of Sarah and Crystal’s inquiry as to whether the ice-cream vendor’s presence was legal? Turns out it’s not—Megan’s law does not have a Sno-Kone proviso. Look for a Park Slope Parents citizen’s arrest initiative soon.

Black=existing historic district, Green=expanded historic district, Brown=new, proposed historic district

Though many thought it was not possible, Park Slope is becoming even more perfect. (And no, the ice cream trucks have not agreed to vacate Prospect Park.)

Today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a sizable expansion of the Park Slope historic district, making it one of the largest historic districts in the city, according to a release from City Councilmember Brad Lander.

The extension will include some 580 buildings and will stretch from roughly 7th Street to 15th Street, mostly between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenues. The brownstone bedecked South Slope blocks also include the former Ansonia Clock Works factory and the factory workers' homes.

“These are some of the most beautiful streets in New York and, with today’s vote, we know they will be enjoyed by generations to come," Mr.  Lander said of the decision.

You would think that the first expansion of the historic district in more than 38 years may have been hailed as victory and celebrated with a pint of local microbrew or a cup of single pour coffee. But no. In Park Slope the drum of desire never ceases to beat—one can always seek a more intense yoga class, a fresher farm-to-table experience, a bigger historic district.

Wasting not a moment to bask in the glory of its most recent victory, the Park Slope Civil Council has announced that it plans to advocate for a much larger historic district that would include hundreds of additional buildings above 5th Avenue in North Slope.

"The historical and architectural integrity of Park Slope, its sense of place, remains an ongoing concern of the neighborhood," the otherwise celebratory announcement warned gloomily, perhaps seeing the grim ghost of Christmas Future in the retail chains and bank branches of the Upper West Side.

Hoping to avoid such a fate, the Civic Council announced that it had already requested that the Landmarks Preservation Committee initiate formal action to extend the historic district in the North Slope "whose buildings constitute the earliest development of the neighborhood."

In fact, the Civic Council won't rest until all of Park Slope is landmarked. "The Park Slope Civic Council is laying the groundwork to have all of Park Slope eventually considered," according to their website.

kvelsey@observer.com

Now, the Alliance has unveiled a new proposal that will give each group its own dedicated lane, cutting down the car lane from two to one and giving peds and bikes their own dedicated space. There will be space for running both ways and for both slow and fast bikes, a more even allotment on the street.

“We decided that the only workable solution was for each group to have a lane and only one lane, throughout the day,” Emily Lloyd, administrator of the park, told The Times. “There was consensus — I would say enthusiastic consensus.”

She told the paper that she expected drivers would be revving their engines in dismay, but as a meeting last night showed, it was actually the walkers and bikers who were more concerned. According to the Post, the overwhelming message from 100 or so attendees was that cars should be banned outright. “The long-term goal is a car free park and we won’t stop until we get there," one attendee said.

Eric McClure, head of community group Park Slope Neighbors echoed the call in a release sent out last night after the meeting:

We applaud the Task Force for taking steps to increase the safety of park users, and for doing so with deliberate care and consideration. However, the single biggest threat to safety in the park is the presence on the drives of speeding motor vehicles.  The well being of the countless walkers, runners and cyclists who use Prospect Park everyday is being compromised for the sake of a tiny minority, just a few hundred drivers a day, who invariably repay the privilege of taking a shortcut through the park by stomping on the accelerator.

Removing cars from the park drives should really be considered a prerequisite for solving the issue of conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians. The ongoing presence of motor vehicles in the park will continue to sow confusion over the usage of the car lane during car-free hours, and relying on the honor system to keep drivers confined to their one lane – the same drivers who routinely and nearly universally shatter the speed limit in the park – seems like a recipe for danger.

Ms. Lloyd did not rule out the possibility for a no-car park, the Daily News reported, saying that this was only a temporary fix, a response to the recent accidents, and that the issue would continue to be studied after the changes are made.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

This afternoon, the Prospect Park Alliance, a nonprofit that operates Prospect Park on behalf of the Parks Department and of which administrator Tupper Thomas is president, sent out a press release announcing the first meeting of the Prospect Park Wildlife Management Advisory Committee. Its members include a couple of vocal opponents of the July culling, including New York City Audubon, as well as institutional players like the Parks Department and Councilman Brad Lander.

The Committee seeks, in the announcement's words, to "recommend a Canada goose management plan for Prospect Park that is scientifically sound, humane, practical, and transparent to the community.  It is the Park’s hope that this plan would help maintain the goose population at acceptable levels to facilitate cleaner shorelines and water, and to support a diverse array of waterfowl within Prospect Park’s 585 acres."

Glenn Phillips, the executive director of New York City Audubon, attended the Monday meeting. He said that while the panel will have little impact on citywide efforts to eliminate geese--and thereby protect airplanes from bird strikes--the panel may well facilitate better habitat management, which, in turn, may prevent future culls.

"I think it’s clear that this panel is dealing with how Prospect Park manages its wildlife and will have probably little impact on citywide efforts," Mr. Phillips said. "So, our goal is to prevent occurrences of Canada goose culls in Prospect Park by creating an environment in Prospect Park which supports a small population of Canada geese."

What does that mean in practice?

"It may mean treating eggs, modifying habitat to make it less appealing to Canada geese," Mr. Phillips said. "It may mean a longer-term effort to replace turf in Prospect Park with grasses less palatable to Canada geese. It may mean some modification of the shoreline. Canada geese like to be able to walk from shortly mowed lawn directly into the water. That’s heaven for a Canada goose. The less of that you can have in a park, the better. In the mix, might also be looking at places in the park that are open for off-leash dog activity. They may want to switch, because where there’s off-leash dog activity, there’s less Canada goose activity."

"The most important thing that’s going to need to change is people are going to have to stop feeding waterfowl," Mr. Phillips said. "It’s bad for the lake, it’s bad for the birds, and it sets Prospect Park up for future lethal culls. I have a 6 year old myself and the temptation is great. But I if really care about those geese, I need to stop feeding them."

On the flip side, fewer Canada geese may mean increased habitat for pied-billed grebe, a species that used to frequently nest in Prospect Park, but is now considered a threatened New York State species. 

The full release is below.

Brooklyn, NY – The newly convened Wildlife Management Advisory Committee for Prospect Park held its first meeting this week. Members of the Committee (see below for list of organizations) represent important stakeholders in the community, as well as professionals involved with animal welfare, education, science and urban park management.   Prospect Park will benefit from the extensive knowledge and experience these organizations and individuals have in urban wildlife management.

The first goal for the Committee is to recommend a Canada goose management plan for Prospect Park that is scientifically sound, humane, practical, and transparent to the community.  It is the Park’s hope that this plan would help maintain the goose population at acceptable levels to facilitate cleaner shorelines and water, and to support a diverse array of waterfowl within Prospect Park’s 585 acres.

Prospect Park was one of the sites where Canada Geese were culled earlier this year by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as part of an agreement between the USDA, the City of New York and the Port Authority of NY & NJ.  The agreement gives the USDA permission to employ Canada Geese mitigation measures at sites selected by the New York City Airports Wildlife Hazard Management Steering Committee.

By creating and implementing a Canada goose management plan, we aim to keep the population of Canada geese in Prospect Park low enough to avoid any future intervention by federal agencies. Moreover, after initially focusing on Canada goose management, Prospect Park’s Wildlife Management Advisory Committee will make recommendations on a variety of wildlife-related issues affecting the Park.  The expectation is that the Committee can help create a wildlife management plan that is a model for Prospect Park and other parks throughout New York City and beyond.

The Wildlife Management Advisory Committee is expected to make its initial recommendations to Prospect Park later this fall.  The Park will schedule a date before the end of the year to present the Committee’s findings to the public and invite community feedback.   

Prospect Park Wildlife Management Advisory Committee

Organizations represented at September, 2010 meeting:

·         Audubon New York

·         Brooklyn Bird Club

·         Brooklyn College

·         New York City Council Member Brad Lander

·         Humane Society of the United States

·         New York City Audubon

·         Prospect Park Community Committee

·         Prospect Park and Prospect Park Alliance

·         New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, including the Dept.’s Urban Park Rangers and Natural Resources Group.

Unable to attend initial Committee meeting but being consulted/future attendance expected:

·         Geese Peace

·         New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

For more information on Prospect Park events, programs, membership and volunteering,

call the Park Hotline at (718) 965-8999 or visit www.prospectpark.org

Dial 311 for all Parks & Recreation information

In partnership with the City of New York and the community, the Prospect Park Alliance

restores, develops, and operates Prospect Park for the enjoyment of all by caring for the

natural environment, preserving historic design, and serving the public through facilities

and programs. Prospect Park’s 585 acres of meadows, waterfalls, forest, lakes,

and athletic facilities comprise a masterwork of urban green space.

# # #

The issue, for those--to evoke another bird species--who bury their heads in the sand, centers on the hundreds of Prospect Park geese who used to reside at the Prospect Park lake. Beloved by local children and families, the birds were rounded up and gassed in July by the federal government (with city approval), in an effort to prevent the sort of birdstrikes that brought down a U.S. Airways flight in 2009.

Even so, critics, including former Parks Commish Henry Stern and animal experts, question the efficacy of the technique. Not to mention the political indelicacy.

But sublety be damned! This is Andrea Peyser we're talking about:

The geese must die.

An epic battle is looming between the forces of goose and evil.

New York's militant animal-rights activists are outraged by the massacre this summer of some 400 Canada geese in Brooklyn's bucolic Prospect Park by government assassins -- and they're mobilizing for a fight. So crazy are these birdbrains for the nasty creatures, some vow to use their bodies as human shields to protect the flying plane-droppers from destruction.

...But as Round 2 approaches in the Great Goose War, officials from the US Department of Agriculture's wildlife service, who came in and gassed the birds to death early one July morning, say they won't back down. Not while geese are still getting stuck in jet engines, like those of Capt. Chesley Sullenberger.

More here.

At that point, "the Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services [became] more aggressive, and more effective, than the variety of non-lethal measures that had been used at both airports for many years," said Bryan Swift, the leader of the game bird unit for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

..Experts from the two organizations most actively involved in pre-crash discussions with goose policy makers - Geese Peace and the Humane Society - say they have barely spoken to government agencies since the "Miracle on the Hudson."

"We are sick and tired of hearing them claim to have included us in the process" of goose control, said Laura Simon, the urban wildlife director with the Humane Society. "We're very frustrated. They have not included us in the decision-making process."

Read the whole article here.