The Battery

The Daily Plant : Monday, January 22, 2001

CAPITAL PROJECTS: 2000 IN REVIEW AND PROJECTIONS AHEAD

Capital passed a remarkable milestone this year. Since 1995, the city has committed more than $1 billion in capital funding to Parks. In Fiscal Year 2000 and 2001 Capital averaged $200 million committed each year. That's a record for the agency and four times the output in 1994. Capital is enjoying a tremendous workload and ever greater efficiency. At any given moment, over 300 capital projects are underway, and it is now possible to design and construct projects in under a year.

As recently as 6 years ago, Parks would have to wait until a park was falling down before capital money could be applied to renovations. The use of requirements contracts now facilitates targeted improvements to fencing, pavement and play equipment in an average of one and a half to three months. This year Capital reached-and then surpassed-their goal to complete 1,000 requirements projects during Mayor Giuliani's administration.

2001 will see several exciting projects. For the first time in 35 years, New York City will have a new municipal golf course. The course will be an eighteen-hole, par 72 layout, in Ferry Point Park. In addition to the golf course, the plans include public access to the waterfront, pedestrian and bicycle paths.

Brooklyn Bridge Park, a joint project by the state and city, will connect green spaces along the edge of the borough, and open up the waterfront for recreational use and urban vistas.

East River Park is to include 8.8 acres of open space, ballfields and courts under the Williamsburg Bridge.

In Queens, the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Pool and Ice Rink is to be the first pool Parks opens in four decades. It will be Olympic size with a moveable floor that alters the depth of the water. Also in the 82,000 square foot building, a hockey rink will open for ice hockey leagues and public skating.

In 2001, the Cromwell Recreation Center in Staten Island will rise from the water into which it is now sinking. Deteriorated pilings underwater will be stabilized by Parks engineers, so that the center may reopen in time for next year's basketball season.

CAPITAL COMMITMENT CROSSES $100 MILLION MARK

Capital Projects reports that as of December 31, the capital commitment for fiscal year 2001 broke the $100 million mark. This is certainly a record for the first half of any fiscal year. Notable among the registrations to date are the reconstruction of the upper promenade in Battery Park and construction of a comfort station and pavilion at Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, as well as 15 tree planting and 15 requirements contracts. At this rate, the capital commitment could reach $250 million by year's end.

By Mary (Catalyst) Pazan

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE PLANT
(Monday, January 25, 1988)

PARKS HOMELESS YOUTH RECREATION EXTENDS SERVICES TO CHILDREN

The Parks Homeless Youth Recreation Program has recently extended its services, reports Director Joanne S. Kaplan.

The program, now in its fourth year, offers healthy, supervised education and recreation to New York children aged six to fourteen, whose families are temporarily being housed in hotels by the City. The program is the only one of its kind on the East Coast and serves over 350 children in a week citywide, according to Kaplan.

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"When you look at a city, it's like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who built it."

Hugh Newell Jackson

Know Before You Go

The Battery