Click on the name of the publication to open the link in a new page.
Fighting For Their Park, LES Residents Challenge the City’s Climate Change Plans
by John Tarleton, Aug. 9, 2019, The Indypendent
“They’re asking us to sacrifice something that’s essential for our well-being and for a generation of children,” said…April Merlin, a mother of two who has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years and comes to the park regularly to jog and ride her bike.
Panic and protest over East River Park-closure plan
The Villager, June 13, 2019 by Gabe Herman
An article about the 70 people who testified passionately, almost all of them against the flood plan, to Community Board 3 Manhattan. Here are excerpts quoting two East River Park ACTIONEERS:
“… Ted Pender, vice president of Friends of Corlears Hook Park, said he was concerned about air quality from all of the soil that would be dumped in the area. He said people would breathe in particles, and that the area already had high asthma rates….”
“We deserve a safer plan, and don’t need another World Trade [Center] respiratory event in our city,” he said to more cheers.
“A local woman [Pat Arnow] echoed concerns about pollution from the project and about the area already having high asthma rates…”
“Don’t cut the heart out of our neighborhood,” she said, adding, “Let’s see you try this crap in a rich neighborhood.”
Unfortunately, the Board was not swayed. They voted overwhelmingly to accept the plan. They did request revisions that would make the plan less horrible, but the city has been unresponsive to community, and there’s no reason to think they’ll accommodate us in any way.
East Village and Lower East Side neighbors called for an independent review of the city’s east side resiliency plan.
by Sydney Pereira, Patch, June 12, 2019
“Closing up the parks is one of the stupidest ideas they’ve had in a long time,” said Dave Brasuell, who’s lived in New York City Housing Authority’s Jacob Riis Houses for 65 years. “It’s a good idea to fix the park, but they should do it in phases.”
BIG U (East Side Coastal Resiliency) UPDATE FOR JUNE 2019
Summing up, with links, where the project is now.
“To Save East River Park, the City Intends to Bury It”
by Joseph Hanania, January 18, 2019
A cogent article in the New York Times about the new plan and our community’s problems with it:
Other earlier news stories about East River Park are listed in the East River Alliance In The News page: East River Alliance News
Good work with the neighborhood and city leadership is being done by the East River Alliance.