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Big March to Save the Park

Posted on April 19, 2021May 3, 2021 by Pat

A crowd of some 500 marched from Tompkins Square Park to East River Park Amphitheater Sunday, April 18.

Many of the marchers stopped to stage a Die-In at the office of City Council Member Carlina Rivera to protest the killing of East River Park. She could get the plan changed. Photo by Andrew Wells.
Megaera Regan captured protesters marching through East River Park. This was just some of us.
  • 500 marched from Tompkins Square Park to East River Park
  • Emily Johnson
  • Eileen Myles, leading chants
  • Die in at Carlina Rivera’s office
  • Artists Against Displacement signs
  • Lucia Hartray wrote a song for the park
  • Dancers honoring trees
  • Isai Camilo Roca, friend of pigeons
  • Daniel Strongwalker Thomas, The Delaware Nation Lenni Lenape
  • Daniel Strongwalker Thomas
  • Amphitheater rally
  • Some of the organizers celebrate a helluva day

For more photos, including all the candidates/advocates, see the photo album: https://patarnow.zenfolio.com/p551069889

Speakers

Eileen Myles, MC
Daniel Strongwalker Thomas, The Delaware Nation Lenni Lenape

Video by Harriet Hirshorn


Statement from Kiara Williams, co-founder Warriors in the Garden
Emily Johnson; LES land protector

Video by Harriet Hirshorn

Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Choir

Save East River Park March, Die-In and Rally with Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Choier. Video by Tam Tam

Chloe Shiffman – young poet
Jesse Cerrotti, Sierra Club

Video by Harriet Hirshorn

Jack Lester, ERPA Attorney – our FOILS and transparency
Alicia Boyd – famed community activist of Movement to Protect the People

Fiery Speech with explicit language. Video by Harriet Hirshorn

Manhattan Borough President Candidate, Lindsey Boylan
Council Member Candidate for District 2, Erin Hussein
Tony Queylin – Two Bridges resident and representative of the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and LES 
Isai Camilo Roca, friend of pigeons

Video by Harriet Hirshorn

Arthur Schwartz, ERPA attorney on our alienation lawsuit and candidate for City Council 

Video by Harriet Hirshorn.

Council Member Candidate for District 1, Christopher Marte 
Lucia Hartray, student performing a song she wrote for the park

Council Member Candidate for District 2, Allie Ryan
Reshma Patel (who is running for Comptroller)
Jonathan Gonzales, Poet
Legendary LES DJ Ralphy CBS

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lindsey Boylan (@lindseyboylanny)

Kinstillatory Poets (doing poems in the park during march):
Omar Berrada
Brenda Coultas
Marcella Durand
Jonathan Gonzalez 
Rachael Guynn Wilson
Mindy Levokov
Tanya Marquardt
E.J. McAdams
Patricia Nicholson Parker 
Alexis Quinlan
Evelyn Reilly
Sarah Riggs
Chloe Shiffman
Robert Gibbons 
Marilyn Thomas King 
Linda Kienbub
Phillip Gambri

TREE-DISCO-BEAT-IENCE TEAM (dancing in the park during the march)
Nora Almeida
Tanya Marquardt
Jody Oberfelder
Alexa Smithwrick 
Emily Johnson
Monica Sun
Linda La    
Laziza
andrea haenggi 
Liam McLaughlin 
Annie Wang
and the community that can join in 

TREE DISCO-BEAT-IENCE dancing team is spearheaded by andrea haenggi and Emily Johnson, in conversation with the Urban Forest in East River Park and beyond, and with Annie Wang and Tanya Marquardt.It is an effort to be in multispecies commoning during the March. The TREE DISCO-BEAT-IENCE dancing team dances with and for the trees during the March, expanding into human and more-than-human kin, and recognizes our entanglement and relation. Environmental Justice is Social Justice. Climate Justice is Social Justice.

AND MORE!
children, adults, dogs all welcome
Please wear your masks and maintain social distance

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @lesclimatejustice

DEMANDS we made at our March and Rally to Save East River Park Sunday, April 18, 2021. 

Tell City officials (scroll way down for contact information)

  • a moratorium on the East Side Coastal Resiliency project
  • a new environmental review
  • a new flood control plan that preserves our parkland
  • interim flood protection
  • transparency, accountability
  • an open park as the pandemic rages on

The marchers are also asking City Council Member Justin Brannan, chair of the Resiliency and Waterfronts Committee and member of the Parks and Recreation Committee, to hold a hearing on the recently uncovered (by East River Park Action!) Value Engineering Study that was the justification for the current destruction.

The study shows alternatives to the massive plan. It also appears that one reason the city chose to bury the park and build a giant levee was to avoid oversight by the state (called alienation) and having to provide adequate alternative park space during construction. 

Justin Brannan, Chair, Committee on Resiliency and Waterfronts
718-748-5200
212-788-7363
AskJB@council.nyc.gov
@JustinBrannan

Preserve the Park + Flood Control
It can be done.


News coverage

‘Save our park!’ Hundreds of protesters — no politicians — march against East Side resiliency plan

Hundreds march in opposition of the East Side Coastal Resiliency project

By Dean Moses, amNY, April 18, 2021

Emily Johnson is of the Yup’ik Nation, and is an avid water and land activist. She is a strong believer that climate justice is racial justice and is one of hundreds of Lower East Side residents against the ESCR project. She says that this plan is only a temporary fix that will destroy the trees in the East River Park and prevent individuals from freely accessing the open space.

“We demand the city stop the demolition of East River Park. We demand a comprehensive outside environmental review of their plan. We demand immediate interim flood control; we demand a truly resilient plan. This city, Mayor de Blasio, our Council Member Carlina Rivera, they want us to accept their environmentally racist plan,” Johnson said, adding, “The city wants us to accept a $1.5 billion plan that is only temporary, it is not resilient, destroys our park, and for years makes our community vulnerable.”

Great pictures, too!

Protesters march against plans to demolish East River Park

BY AMY YENSI, MANHATTAN, NY1, April 18, 2021

“We had a plan that the community worked on for years, planing everything, going over structures and then the mayor unilaterally decided, without community input, that the way to save the park was to destroy it for at least 5 years,” said resident Judy Capel. 

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      • History and Resources
        • History and Resources
        • Videos/Photos
          • Videos/Photos
          • Endangered Environs
        • Whaddya Want Anyway?
        • Cover the FDR
        • Legal
          • Alienated, reasons we sued, 2019
            • Alienation Lawsuit denied 8/20
            • Alienation denied, reasons for appeal
            • Alienation Lawsuit Appeal documents
            • Court orders, defied
            • Lawsuit Filed for Unredacted Value Engineering Report
        • Value Engineering
          • Value Engineering, Redacted
          • Resolved: No Value No Plan
        • Not One Sandbag
          • Not One Sandbag Part 2
        • The Rivers Beneath the Streets
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      • Proposed Real Grass Legislation in New York
      • Artificial Turf spills into East River, Lower East Side
      • Unnatural fields installed, East River Park, 2024
      • Temperatures of Artificial Turf, Lower East Side,
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