Parade Ground

The Daily Plant : Wednesday, October 17, 2001

A CLASSIC IS REVISED

Photo by Malcolm (Cinema) Pinckney

Photo Caption:

Notable Parks Photo Op: British Royalty brought an entourage from London’s National Coldstream Guard and the Scots Guards to perform in Washington Square Park on Sunday October 15 for the opening of UKwithNY, a cultural festival being held this month. Commissioner Henry J. (StarQuest) Stern shared the podium with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York; Sir Christopher Meyer, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Unites States; Thomas Harris, British Consul General; Philip Warner, Chairman of the UKwithNY Festival; and Alan (Scotsman) Bain, President of the American-Scottish Foundation.

Millions of New Yorkers and visitors use the Bronx’s flagship Van Cortlandt Park each year for its Cross Country course, Parade Grounds, the city’s oldest golf course, and the Van Cortlandt Historic House Museum. In 2000 and 2001, Parks celebrated capital improvements to Paddy’s Field, the City’s only Gaelic Football field, the Indian Field Tennis courts, and the golf course. New Yorkers also took the first ride on a new Bronx tourist trolley.

On Tuesday, October 16, Parks began an $875,000 reconstruction of Classic Playground in Van Cortlandt Park. This golden oldie of a playground dates to the era of Park Commissioner Robert Moses. But the playground that was fully modern when it opened, could use a 21^st century makeover. It is for that purpose that Council Member June (Mainland) Eisland allocated funds for reconstruction. In the redesign, Parks preserves what works and adapts the rest for the needs of modern kids at play.

Already, the park offers kids handball and basketball courts, slides, seesaws, and play equipment. To that list will be added new safety swings, a piece of mountain climber play equipment, painted games, slides, and two new pieces of modular play equipment. There will be a drinking fountain and benches and safety surfacing on the ground. The seven-foot steel fence that borders the park will be crafted with figures of children at play.

Council Member Eisland; Bill (Zorro) Castro, Bronx Borough Commissioner; Dotty (Polka) Lewandowski, Bronx Chief of Operations; Linda (Hickory) Dockeray; and students from P.S. 95 and the Amalgamated Pre-school sang classic American tunes to lead off the reconstruction.

Robert E. Brown, the father of Pat Brown, Media Consultant for the Press Office, died in Queens on Thursday, October 13, 2001. He was 77 years old. Pat wishes to let Parkies know that a viewing will take place at House of Hills, 406 Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn on Thursday, October 18, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m.

(Wednesday, October 19, 1988)

Park Enforcement Patrol (PEP) Supervisor Ray Acosta and his crew didn’t think they are the "Untouchables." But the officers are making liquor busts at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens that would make Elliot Ness proud.

On just one recent arrest for illegally selling alcohol in parks, for example, PEP officers Gale Rice and Joe Corier confiscated 133 cases of beer. The officers were patrolling the Korean Day Festival in Queens’ flagship park when they noticed a suspicious truck. The driver of the truck saw the officers at the same time, backed up and started to drive away. But the truck stalled and seconds later the bootlegger was apprehended. The officers found beer inside the vehicle buried under vegetables and other food.

"Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay buries in the memory,

inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me."

Jean Genet (1910-1986)