BY ROSE ADAMS
Southern Brooklyn’s
sprawling Floyd Bennett Field
partially reopened on June
13, more than one month after
federal offi cials closed the
park to store out-of-commission
MTA buses.
“We all feel good,” said Leondre
Descartes, a retired
Mill Basin resident who fi shes
from the park in Jamaica Bay.
Hikers, bikers, and fi shermen
may once again use the
greenspace, according to park
offi cials, who noted that the
site’s campground, archery
and sports fi elds, and visitor
center will remain closed until
further notice.
The reopening comes seven
weeks after national park offi -
cials closed the 1,000-plus-acre
fi eld to allow transit authorities
to store idle MTA buses at
the park, which resulted from
the agency’s reduction of bus
service during the COVID-19
pandemic.
Although offi cials stored
about 100 buses at the park at
the height of the pandemic,
park offi cials sealed off the entire
COURIER L 6 IFE, JUNE 19-25, 2020
greenspace to the public,
claiming that a partial closure
would be diffi cult to maintain
and would require more security
resources, a parks spokesperson
told The City in April.
Transit authorities removed
the buses from the
park about two weeks ago, but
the park remained closed for
maintenance, said a spokeswoman
for Gateway National
Recreation Area, which operates
the fi eld.
“Gateway is currently
working to make sure Floyd
Bennett Field is ready for visitors
before opening the gates,”
said Brenda Ling, noting that
offi cials had to mow the lawn
and collect garbage and litter.
The park’s closure infuriated
400-plus members of the
Floyd Bennett Gardens Association,
many of whom rely
on their gardens for fresh produce.
The gardens’ shutdown,
they said, not only prevented
many locals from accessing
greenery, but also made it diffi
cult for some members to
feed themselves.
“It really comes down to
being a food access issue for a
lot of people,” said Shannon, a
gardener who declined to give
her last name. “You got a lot of
elderly people who go, and this
is their lifeline.”
Gardeners wrote angry letters
to the National Parks Service,
who negotiated an agreement
with the association and
allowed the gardeners back
into their plots one week after
the closure.
However, a group of local
fi shermen subsequently
blasted park offi cials for not
granting them equal access to
the site, and claimed that going
to the park was important
for their mental health, too.
“I think of it not only as
a place to catch, but also as
a place to de-stress,” fi sher
Adrian Morris told Brooklyn
Floyd Bennett Field reopened to bikers, hikers and fi shermen on June 13.
National Parks Service
Paper in May, adding that
most fi shermen eat the fi sh
they catch. “Ninety percent of
the fi shermen take their fi sh
for food … The fi sh market is
not exactly cheap.”
Park offi cials at the time
said that they could not allow
the fi shermen to reenter
the park prior to Floyd Bennett
Field’s opening since they
were not part of a formal organization
that could regulate
their activity.
The fi shermen, however, returned
right after the park’s entrance
reopened last weekend.
“I went back Sunday,” said
Decartes, who was fi shing
at Floyd Bennett Field when
reached for comment. He said
he had traveled to the park’s
entrance everyday during the
closure to see if it had opened
yet. “All my buddies were
happy.”
OPEN SEASON
Floyd Bennett Field reopens to fi shermen
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