Lights Out Please
Wasteful, annoying blaring lights stay on the jumbo ball field in East River Park on the Lower East Side every night until 11 p.m. even when no one is playing.
Now it’s bird migration season. Many buildings turn down the lights that are so confusing and deadly for the 25 million birds who fly through New York as they make their journeys south. NYC Parks does not offer the same courtesy to the night flyers.
“It is unthinkable that so much light pollution is exuded out in a time of critical bird migration, wasting energy and causing human discomfort,” writes a Lower East Sider who lives across the FDR from the ball field and sees the lights every night. She rarely sees any team play there in the evening.
Several of us in East River Park Action have been calling and writing Parks officials, the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) liaisons (who are still involved in the work being done to reconstruct the park after the city built the levee on the site), the Community Advisory Group for the ESCR and 311. Officials have all shrugged that they can’t do anything about it.
“I have reported this twice to 311. They write it all down, and days after I get an email saying there is nothing they can do because it’s all ‘legal,’” writes the neighbor who alerted us to the light problem in January.
It might be legal, but it’s destructive and expensive. Parks budgets are chronically underfunded. The unnecessary lighting makes city officials look incompetent. Permits are required for playing, so Parks knows in advance whether a field will be in use and should be able to turn on the lights only when needed.
Please call or write officials. Maybe Parks will learn what the rest of us were taught as soon as we were tall enough to reach the switch. Turn off the lights when you aren’t using them.
Let us know if you get any interesting answers.
–Pat Arnow
East Side Coastal Resiliency community liaison Vanessa Gomez (347) 628-8724or Pauline Chan: (929) 717-9015, both at ESCRCCL1@ddccr.com
Call 311 or report via their website:
Maybe consider blackout blinds special to block out light? I would be happy to install them for you.
Also consider the safety of the people who walk there 24hrs a day? One day it could be you or someone’s kids.