Artificial Turf
Natural grass sports fields would improve our environment and health as the new East River Park rises. Instead the city is installing unhealthful and climate damaging artificial turf. It is also being installed in other fields and playgrounds in our neighborhood and throughout the city and the state.
Assembly member Grace Lee (East River Park’s district) introduced a bill last year for a moratorium on artificial turf throughout the state until the effects can be studied. They banned it in Boston! We can too.
Please contact Lee (and if you are in another district, your own assembly member as well). Ask her to update* and push hard for this legislation: Call 212-312-1420. Email leeg@nyassembly.gov
Bill #A07158.
*The update that is needed–the current bill focuses on crumb rubber infill (the little pebbles that keep the plastic grass blades upright). The city no longer uses it–but other infills have other dangers (see links below), and synthetic turf overall has many risks (excessive heat, player injuries, forever chemicals and plastics entering our soil, air, water and lungs). The moratorium called for in the bill should be in place to study the hazards of artificial turf overall.
Here’s a link where you can enter your address to locate your city, state and federal elected officials: https://www.mygovnyc.org
Contact your City Council Member and state senator as well. In the coming months we will be building a coalition to stop artificial turf and need our elected officials to learn about the risks.
What are the risks to mention? See the links below for the many hazards:
Contact your City and State legislators: Let them know that the current plan is utterly unacceptable. You can find a list of their email addresses here.
Here’s a link where you can enter your address and find addresses for your city, state and federal elected officials: https://www.mygovnyc.org
Or if you already know, here are their email addresses:
Carlina Rivera: https://council.nyc.gov/district-2/,
Chris Marte: https://council.nyc.gov/district-1/ ,
Grace Lee: leeg@nyassembly.gov
Harvey Epstein: https://nyassembly.gov/mem/Harvey-Epstein/contact/,
Mark Levine: https://www.manhattanbp.nyc.gov/contact/
Shekar Krishnan: https://council.nyc.gov/district-25/,
Brad Hoylman: https://www.nysenate.gov/senators/brad-hoylman/contact,
Brian Kavanagh: https://www.nysenate.gov/senators/brian-kavanagh/contact
Mayor Eric Adams: https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/mayor-contact.page
Save (What’s Left of)East River Park
The Esplanade is Under Grave Threat
Take Action
Sign the Petition
The city plans to shut down three more ballfields. More trees around those fields will be felled. It means still more heavy construction in East River Park. We need more tree planting, more nature, more places to play in our neighborhood.
Ask the City WTF (read on to learn specific, polite ways of saying it) via the East Side Coastal Resiliency overseer, the Department of Design and Construction (DDC). Their inquiry form is here.
According to the DDC and our elected officials, 42 percent of East River Park is to remain open and accessible throughout the entire course of the East Side Coastal Resiliency (sic) (ESCR) project. As new parts of the park are opened more of the existing park would be destroyed and rebuilt. This is not true currently. What they are doing is contemptuous, cynical, unjust and immoral.
Local sports teams and youth groups are using the north end of the park hourly on weekdays. Adult groups are using it fully each weekend. The proposal to close and destroy more fields in the North end BEFORE the South end of the park is completed and open for use will severely impact healthful park usage for our local schoolchildren and families.
Other possible changes to current ESCR plan
The design has already been revised over and over by the Department of Design and Construction, which is overseeing the ESCR. It can be revised further with our ideas—finding ways to preserve the northern end of the park with more than 500 trees that hasn’t yet been razed.
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Photo archives
You can look at East River Park photos and also upload your own to this Flickr (photo sharing site) group, East River Park, New York City https://flic.kr/g/3fN7Kd
We also have a biodiversity photo archive at iNaturalist:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=132141&subview=map
You can click on “filters” to select “Research Grade” (more reliable identifications), categories (birds, insects, plants, etc.), or add date or month restrictions. I use this all the time!
There is also a bird list on e-Bird: https://ebird.org/hotspot/L872559
Some of these are linked to photos.
A slide show of the wonders of East River Park in recent years and what we are losing by Pat Arnow. https://patarnow.zenfolio.com/p313418955
2001-2011 a slide show of the painful 10-year closure of the waterfront promenade. Rebuilding was promised as a two year project starting in 2005 (before that, starting July, 2001, the waterfront was just flat closed with no plans to fix the builkheads) by Pat Arnow: https://patarnow.zenfolio.com/p249576553
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More Air Quality
To get involved in LES Breathe, the East River Park Action effort to monitor and improve air quality during this project, contact LESbreathe@gmail.com
LES Breathe
Thanks to your support, LES Breathe has purchased air quality sensors. The first five PurpleAir real time monitors are being placed around the neighborhood, along with mobile sensors that work indoors or out. In coming weeks, these sensors will provide open data that will be shared on easy to use maps.
Also in the works:
- A guide in Spanish and English for having cleaner air at home
- An inclusive Air Quality engagement campaign
- A concise review of the 2,000 page report on the Park’s soil and water. That was another document that came to East River Park Action via a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
LES Breathe has a growing number of volunteers – contact lesbreathe@gmail.com to get involved.
For more about this public health-focused committee of East River Park Action, visit our LES Breathe web page.
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Please donate–we are a 501(c)3 so donations are tax deductible.
Donate via PayPal (you can use a credit card with this link also). Or write checks payable to “East River Park Action” then, in the memo write “legal.” Send to East River Park Action, c/o Jonathan Lefkowitz, 426 E. 10th St., New York, N.Y. 10009