
8
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, AUGUST 30, 2020
FIELDING COMPLAINTS
Gerritsen Beach residents demand city give equal ballfi eld upkeep
BY JESSICA PARKS
Gerritsen Beach residents
are calling on the
city to maintain their ballfi
elds as they do for neighboring
Marine Park — instead
of allowing the fi elds
to fall into the unusable
condition they are currently.
“We always feel like we
are the stepchild,” said
John Mooney, president of
the Gerritsen Beach Property
Owners Association.
“Why take care of one
park and not take care of
the other?”
Three of the neighborhood’s
ballfi elds on Gerritsen
Avenue — all of
which are under the care
of the city’s Parks Department
— are outfi tted with
tall grass, with weeds
speckling the baseball diamonds
and vines overtaking
the fences and dugouts.
“The dugouts are unusable,
the mosquito condition
is so bad,” said Dave
Reynolds, treasurer of
the Property Owners Association.
“The vines are
obstructing the view into
the fi elds.”
While softball and
baseball programs in the
city did not gather this
year due to the coronavirus,
locals argue that
kids could have still enjoyed
the area recreationally
during the summer,
similar to the children of
Marine Park, where the
baseball diamonds are
fully groomed.
“None of these fi elds
were given any of the liberties
as the Prospect Park
or Marine Park fi elds,”
Reynolds said. “Usually
in April or May they till
the infi elds of the softball
fi elds and not even that
was done. We can’t even
get the grass cut at this
point.”
After more than a year
of no results, members of
the Gerritsen Beach Property
Owners Association
emailed neighborhood
residents in April, calling
on them to sign a pre-written
letter urging elected
offi cials and the Parks Department
to ensure Gerritsen
Beach’s ballfi elds
are kept up to par with
others in the borough.
“The state of these
fi elds is horrendous, and
we have petitioned the
Parks Department to step
up and do what they are
supposed to do,” Reynolds
said.
Residents say they’ve
been told the ballfi elds
are not being maintained
due to a lack of manpower
and equipment, which the
Parks Department has allegedly
said would need to
be hauled from Prospect
Park to Gerritsen Beach
to expand upkeep.
To keep the Gerritsen
Beach ballfi eld tidy, residents
say, city offi cials
have vowed to lend the
equipment if community
members volunteer to
maintain the greenspace.
But, locals contend that it
isn’t their responsibility
— and that they already
handle all the groundskeeping
at the Little League
ballfi elds further down
Gerritsen Avenue.
“We already manage
two very large fi elds here,
they are pretty meticulously
maintained,” Reynolds
said. “Our thought is,
we do enough already …
they can’t expect us to do
their job for them.”
Assemblywoman Jaime
Williams, who represents
Canarsie, Marine Park
and Gerritsen Beach, said
that, while she has been
advocating for the grooming
of the ballfi eld, it is
not likely to happen this
season due to the reduction
of Parks Department
personnel as part of the
fi nancial fallout from the
coronavirus pandemic.
“We are aware of the
unfortunate conditions at
the Gerritsen Beach ballfi
elds. We are pushing to
try to have them cleaned
upon in an expedited fashion,”
Williams told Brooklyn
Paper. “The major issue
now is the reduction
in personnel for parks
and sanitation; as well as
the overwhelming public
health crisis that we are
all facing together.”
According to Williams,
if Parks can get the equipment
down to Gerritsen
Beach, the fi elds are scheduled
for a trim this fall.
“We did receive some
positive news with regard
to the fall season, in which
parks and sanitation hope
to have the heavy machinery
come to the fi eld to
trim, cut and prune,” she
said. “Although this is not
an immediate solution, we
will do all we can to try to
expedite this for the residents
of Gerritsen Beach.”
The ballfi eld dugouts have visibly deteriorated, and have not been repaired. Photo by Jessica Parks
Woman killed by tractor-trailer
BY TODD MAISEL
A 40-year-old woman
was crushed to death
Monday morning after being
run over by a tractortrailer
driver in East New
York, police offi cials said.
The victim, not immediately
identifi ed, was
panhandling along Linden
Boulevard at Fountain
Avenue at 11 am on Aug.
24 when she was crushed
under the rear wheels of
the tractor-trailer, police
from the 75th Precinct reported.
She was dead immediately,
law enforcement
sources said.
The driver of the UMax
truck, traveling east
on Linden Boulevard at
the time of the incident,
remained at the scene and
was checked for intoxication
and questioned, but
not charged.
“I saw her this morning,
she had on a yellow
dress,” said Desiree Williams,
a local resident
who said that she had seen
the victim almost every
morning.
Additional reporting
by Lloyd Mitchell Cops examine the body at the scene. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
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