“Any place can become a park” – thoughts from Adrian Benepe

An absolutely beautiful assemblage of photographs! You are on a wonderfully effective trajectory to bring the imagination to these wonderful parks back into the psyche of our daily appreciation of New York.

It is great that the city has begun to engage their urban fabric, and put money toward new construction projects in it. And while I’m sure that this project has best intentions, and is probably changing the city in a positive way, it sheds light on a key idea that is currently ingrained in our culture. If we consider that landscape design as a management strategy, updating lands to fit their new responsibilities, then we see that these projects are simply updating the park for a new perceived version of users. Maybe these places are becoming ‘better’, maybe not. But we must first lose this romantic IMAGE of a park. The land is always being used. It always has a purpose. To call these new spaces a “park” is simply discriminating. Just because the previous user is not a middle to upper class white business person with yearnings of a comfortable “nature” experience does not mean it should be negated. It does not necessarily mean it needs reprogramming, like a lost teenager not fitting in with a bourgeoisie culture. This idealist project endeavors to create a pastoral, romantic vision of a city, and of what a park is. But the plain truth is that your ideal is not mine, and that there are many versions of life that are important and should have a place in our world. Let’s think about this as we design, as we change our world. Do we really want everything to be for the same type of people, and is it really important that they be for people anyway? Can we spend this money to construct other types of environments or promote some other enjoyment or life that progresses the city? Can we re-think the ways that we cultivate, and what or who we are cultivating for, and with what materials? This is a great project, but can we imagine an even better one?

Thanks for the comments. Benepe argues persuasively that most of these new parks emerge to serve exactly the people who need them. He puts money behind that claim, paying staff as outreach coordinators and using their input to rig parks for the sports (cricket, soccer, BMX) their neighbors want. The design of these new parks and many new playgrounds reflects input from low-income, immigrant or marginalized neighbors, and nearly all of them include ample seating for the elderly. All Brian’s questions are rich and haunting, but let’s not oversimplify the object of critique.

Regarding Highland Park/Ridgewood Reservoir – Mr. Benepe has summarily ignored nearly all the input from the community, this includes changes to the phase 1 design asked for by the local community boards. The $50M originally set aside for the reservoir project would not have included ANY improvements to Highland Park despite the fact that the baseball fields at HP are in horrible condition. The commissioner’s own ecological assessment describes the reservoir habitats as “unique to New York City”, yet he has no problem destroying its wetlands and forests. People need to take a closer look at Mr. Benepe’s record, not just his spin.

The development of the Ridgewood Reservoir has been totally mishandled by the Park’s Dept. This is where we stand
1. Listening sessions with the results ignored.
The will of two community boards and a Borough President ignored. Manipulation of the survey results to satisfy one politician with an environmental record of zero.

Take a look at the third picture down from the top. that’s a remaining piece of North Brooklyn’s post-industrial abandoned waterfront. Yes, it would make a good park, of sorts, but only if its wildness can be preserved.

All too often, when a place like this is turned into a park it loses its soul. Asphalt paths, railings, non-contextual plantings and overwrought concern for ‘safety issues’ will turn this little pocket into yet another tame and boring waterfront park. Witness the former rail terminal site along North 12th-14th Sts, now a state park, fenced in, tidy lawns, two guards on scooters to tell you what not to do (no cameras!) and a shadow of the informal and increasingly natural community waterfront park it had been for years in the eighties and nineties.

Mr. Benepe and company may be well intentioned, but why not let the communities themselves have more input as to how they like their park? Particularly, let the artists and gardeners take on the project – witness the success of some of the locally-run Green Thumb gardens around the city. And leave those chunks of concrete, the remnants of piers and patches of beach. It’s fun to ‘discover’ a forgotten place that invites exploration – a hideaway where one can read or have a picnic, or enjoy the view without feeling scrutinized by Big Brother in an official public park.

‘Let it be” may be a good guideline in these situations.

I applaud the Parks Department and Mr. Benepe’s efforts to open up more of these underutilized spaces. Parks offer the greatest utility to the greatest number of people.

As a younger New Yorker, I enjoyed exploring these off-limits places. Williamsburg Beach, Gravesend Bay, and even the McCarren Park Pool when it was mostly a homeless encampment, were all great places to go and hang out. But usage of those spaces was limited to the young and curious and the poor and desperate.

The comments above that vaguely argue for a policy of benign neglect are misguided. It’s an argument for the sensibilities of the few over the enjoyment of the many.

Bushwick Inlet Park needs a lot of work before it is completed. The city will need to buy a relatively large piece of property (or take it by eminent domain), conduct an environmental study that might take years, and conduct environmental remediation that may also take year before the park actually reaches Bushwick Inlet.

Which, of course, is not to condemn the partial completion. A partial park is still a park. Though this one does use artificial turf.