PUT A RING ON IT!
Domino Park gets creative with painted circles set six feet apart
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
No need to reinvent the
wheel!
Greenspace stewards at
Domino Park have painted
eight-foot-wide circles on
their lawns to help parkgoers
maintain social distance
as they flock to open
spaces during the summer
months, said the director
of the Williamsburg waterfront
meadow.
“We’re taking the issue
really seriously and we
wanted to figure out ways
to keep the park open,” said
Michael Lampariello.
The creative enforcement
effort was hatched on
May 15, when Lampariello
and his colleagues bought
white marking paint at a
local paint shop and began
marking the circles six feet
apart from each other —
and parkgoers immediately
took to the socially distant
idea.
Methodist Hospital residents demand a new contract
4 COURIER LIFE, MAY 22-28, 2020
“We weren’t sure if it
was going to work, but as
soon as we put the circles
down, folks were going to
them and started policing
themselves,” he said.
If the popular six-acre
space on River Street —
which is open to the public,
but privately owned
by developers Two Trees
— didn’t get overcrowding
under control, Mayor Bill
de Blasio had threatened to
enforce limits on the number
of people allowed to
enter, as he did at Manhattan’s
Hudson River Park.
But, as temperatures
reached summertime levels
over the weekend, the
innovative painted circles
helped limit social distancing
violations enough to ensure
everyone had unfettered
access to the space.
“It was a great spring
day in the park,” he said. “I
was talking to one family
and the dad was just clearly
excited to get out with his
kids.”
And on top of the new
circle technique, park managers
have also worked
with the local police precinct
to close off four blocks
to cars on adjacent River
Street from S. First to S.
Fifth streets on busier days
— giving even more space
to cooped-up Brooklynites
gasping for air during the
novel coronavirus pandemic,
according to Lampariello.
Brooklynites enjoy the sun inside newly painted social distant circles at
Domino Park. Photo by Todd Maisel
BY JESSICA PARKS
Medical residents on the
front lines of the COVID-19
pandemic at Park Slope’s New-
York-Presbyterian Brooklyn
Methodist Hospital have been
operating without a contract
for months after they say hospital
administrators have been
dragging their feet during negotiations.
“We have been trying to renegotiate
our union contract
with Methodist since the fall,”
said one resident, who asked to
remain anonymous in fear of
retaliation. “And the process
has just been getting delayed
and delayed.”
Their union negotiated
their previous multi-year contract
that expired in October
2019, forcing them to work
without a stable contract ever
since — and management has
not reopened negotiations and
did not implement a scheduled
raise last November, said the
resident.
“We had planned to get
them back to the negotiation
table early this month, or late
last month, and again they just
didn’t meet with us when we
had planned and discussed having
another meeting,” she said.
Without a contract, the residents
— who are typically postgraduates
gaining three years
experience under a senior medical
practitioner before operating
independently — work
under the expectation that the
terms in the expired contract
will be maintained without any
real protections to ensure they
are followed.
The lack of a long term contract
adds to the stress of the
coronavirus pandemic, which
has put the medics on the frontlines
and made them more important
than ever.
“All of us were happy to step
up to the plate so we got redeployed
to these specialties to
help the COVID patients,” said
the resident. “We are willing
to do anything for our patients,
but we have to hope the administration
can do the same for
us.
Another medical resident at
Methodist echoed his coworkers’
sentiment and said that
re-upping their contract would
help put their mind at ease during
the pandemic.
“I think one component to
increase stability and give us
a little control back in our lives
would be having a settled contract
and having that off our
plate as we chip in,” the resident
said.
Making matters worse, the
Brooklyn residents are not afforded
the same privileges as
their Manhattan colleagues —
such as equal housing opportunities
and the same access to
medical journals, said the medics.
“We think that when we
take care of Brooklyn patients
we do just as good of a
job as our Manhattan counterparts,”
he told Brooklyn Paper.
“We think that physicians who
take care of Brooklyn patients
should be paid as much as physicians
who take care of Manhattan
patients.”
Hospital administrators, in
a statement to Brooklyn Paper,
alluded to the novel coronavirus
as a reason for the slowed
negotiations — although did
not explain why the negotiations
were not completed in the
months before the pandemic.
“We greatly value our interns
and residents, who have
worked bravely alongside our
other heroic health care workers
on the front lines of this pandemic.
We respect their right to
collectively bargain their wages
and benefi ts, and we are eager
to return to the bargaining table
with their union later this
month now that his extremely
intense and demanding period
for our hospital has begun to
subside,” the statement read.
“Our goal will be to negotiate
in good faith to reach a fair and
reasonable agreement that recognizes
the important role interns
and residents play at our
hospital.”
Yet, that was not an ample
excuse for the residents, who
said other hospitals that have
successfully renegotiated contracts
during the pandemic.
“Even during the pandemic,
there actually were other hospitals
that were able to settle their
contracts” he said.
Brooklyn Methodist residents rally for a new contract. Photo courtesy of the Committee of Interns and Residents