Chelsea gets a new public park
BY GABE HERMAN
Chelsea has opened its fi rst
new community park in
40 years, welcoming
Chelsea Green on W. 20th
St. between Sixth and Seventh
Aves.
At the July 25 ribboncutting,
Council Speaker
Corey Johnson, who
represents the West
Side district, said, “We
need parks. Many New
Yorkers aren’t able to afford
to leave the city on
weekends, and so parks
are their place for respite.
It’s their urban oasis.”
Johnson noted that Chelsea’s
local Community Board
4 ranks 58th out of the city’s 59
boards in amount of public open
space.
“In a time with so much turmoil and
pain in our country,” Johnson said, “and
a time where you want to look away
from the television every single day. We
need moments to feel good. And this is
a moment to feel good.”
Chelsea Green is a one-quarteracre
park. It includes an area
with playground equipment,
a play turf area, shaded seating,
trees and plantings and
a space for public art displays
and performances.
Matt Weiss and Sally
Greenspan of Friends of
Chelsea Green, thanked
the Parks Department
and local offi cials, especially
Speaker Johnson,
in a statement.
“We also want to acknowledge
the thousands
of Downtown residents
who have passionately supported
this effort for nearly
a decade,” they added. “This
park is a testament to the power
of grassroots activism and a can-do
New York spirit.”
The park cost $5.8 million and included
funding from Mayor Bill de Blasio
and Councilmember Johnson before
he became speaker, as well as a private
donor.
The park was a popular ballot item
in Chelsea’s 2015 Participatory Budgeting
process, which allocates city funding
to local projects that receive the
most votes from the community. The
park received $200,000 from that voting
process.
“C.B. 4 is thrilled by the opening of
Chelsea Green,” said Lowell Kern, the
board’s fi rst vice chairperson and cochairperson
of its Waterfront, Parks
and Environment Committee. “We are
happy that we were able to help the
community realize their vision for this
site. C.B. 4 recognizes the power of
community organizing and celebrates
the opening of a park that was the
highest vote-getter in Speaker Corey
Johnson’s fi rst edition of participatory
budgeting.”
The site of Chelsea Green used to be
a Department of Sanitation facility. It
was torn down by the Department of
Design and Construction to make way
for the park.
L.E.S. hockey rink slammed by resiliency plan
BY GABE HERMAN
With East River Park set to
close for three-and-a-half
years as part of the East Side
Coastal Resiliency fl ood-protection
project, the Parks Department will be
renovating and adding green space to
other nearby parks.
These planned changes, however,
have been causing problems for some
users of those other parks. Skateboarders
in Tompkins Square Park, for example,
have been fi ghting to keep their
pavement, which Parks has proposed
covering with artifi cial turf for youth
sports leagues displaced from East
River Park.
Ball-hockey players in Tanahey Playground,
in the Two Bridges district, are
also being affected by plans to install
artifi cial turf there. This project similarly
will accommodate displaced youth
leagues. But it will be the end of Moffo
Rink, which has been there since 1975
and hosts league and pickup hockey
games.
The rink is 150 feet long by 85 feet
wide, with 4-foot-high boards and
hockey lines marked on the pavement.
It has hosted games by local leagues
Mofo Hockey and Blacktop Street
Hockey.
Tanahey Playground is located between
Cherry and Water Sts., and
Catherine Slip and Market Slip. The
Parks plan is to install a synthetic turf
soccer fi eld, replacing the hockey rink
PHOTO BY DANIEL AVILA/NYC PARKS
Kids cool off at Chelsea Green.
and a basketball court. Two other basketball
courts in the park will stay and
be resurfaced and also remain open for
other activities like tai chi.
In addition, the park’s seating areas
and dog run will be improved, more
plantings and better lighting will be
added, and the park will get a new
paint job.
Some negotiations and work have
been required to fi nd a new space for
the hockey players who will be displaced.
Parks has been in touch with
a group of hockey players who use the
rink, according to a Parks Department
spokesperson. She noted that Parks
presented its plan publicly at community
board meetings and open houses,
and met with the hockey group in late
June.
“After the meeting, we adjusted the
construction schedule so that they
would be able to complete the summer
season as desired,” the spokesperson
said. “Work will begin early fall.”
Discussions are ongoing, according
to Parks, which said it will work
with the hockey players to fi nd another
space for them.
The Community Board 3 Parks,
Recreation, Waterfront and Resiliency
Committee passed a resolution in July
supporting the installation of the turf.
The board noted that space was needed
for the youth leagues that will be displaced
from East River Park, and also
that the plan has community support.
“Parks has done outreach to Knickerbocker
Village, which directly surrounds
the park and they are generally
supportive of the improvements,” the
resolution added.
Even though the 44-year-old rink’s
fate seems to be sealed, there were
four speakers who came to the C.B. 3
full-board meeting on July 23 to voice
their opposition to the plan during the
board’s public session.
One speaker noted there has been a
game at the rink every Saturday morning
going back 25 years, and that he
has been playing there for more than
10 years. He said the Moffo hockey
community has grown over time, and
now hundreds of people play there each
week.
“There’s no other blacktop rink in all
of Manhattan,” he said, “but this has
the hockey lines, hockey boards. It’s
one of a kind.”
He noted that volunteer programs
are held there to teach kids to play ball
hockey and charity tournaments are
held there every year.
A woman named Marcella said she
was representing the women who play
hockey there, and “young women who
deserve the opportunity to play tomorrow.”
She noted that studies show the
positive impacts of sports for adult
women and girls alike, including better
grades in school and more positive
body images.
“Ball hockey is alive and growing
in the women’s community,” she said.
“The demolishing of Moffo Rink, in the
absence of a plan to commit to a concrete
replacement, severely undermines
our efforts and adds another barrier for
women who are trying to compete in
the sport.”
Another advocate said the Two
Bridges rink is not only a space for people
to stay active, but for people to feel
welcome in the community and connect,
including transplants to the city,
he noted.
Some possible spots fl oated as replacements,
such as Robert Moses
Playground, at E. 42nd St. and First
Ave., in East Midtown, or West Village
locations, wouldn’t offer hockey boards
or the same amount of space, according
to another man who spoke. Losing
Moffo would leave the hockey community
without a Manhattan option for
the next year or two, he said.
“There isn’t any other spot for us to
go,” he said.
There was one speaker in favor of
the Parks plan, however. A Knickerbocker
Village Tenants Association
member said her group does not care
whether the space is for hockey or soccer,
but just wants to make sure that, as
promised, the sidewalks are upgraded,
benches are painted, seating is added,
plantings are installed, suitable fencing
is put in around the new sports complex,
and the area is locked at night.
With apologies to the hockey advocates,
she said, “We just want to make
sure that it’s a safe environment.”
8 August 8, 2019 TVG Schneps Media