Is there hope for East River State Park?

As Michael has noted, the potential closing of East River State Park because of budget cuts represents another instance of our community being treated differently from others in the city–no other parks are being closed.

Now, an alternative to closing has been proposed by Assemblyman Joseph Lentol—to have the 94th precinct take some responsibility for the park, opening and closing it each day and doing several checks per day. Captain Fulton of the 94th has generously agreed to this. If the parks department agrees, and a few other safety and cleanup issues can be resolved, the park may well remain open this winter.

Cathleen Breen, NAG board member and part of the East River Park friends group, had this to say:

We have worked closely with Lentol's office on developing alternatives to closing the park and were pleased to hear that the initial discussions between Lentol and the Commissioner were positive and hopeful. Concurrently, we've reached out to open space leaders in New York City and asked that they support our proposal to have the commnity retain access by signing onto a letter to Commssioner Ash. Their supportive response has been overwhelming and we expect the letter to go to the Commissioner in the coming days. I'm hopeful that these all of these efforts will pay off!

In the meantime keep the pressure up!

Send an electronic message to Governor Paterson here.

Send snail mail to State Parks:
Rachel Gordon
Director, New York City Region
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
163 West 125th Street, 17th floor
New York, NY 10027