Brookville Park

Brookville, like all our parks, is a place for New Yorkers to celebrate nature, sport, and community. For his commitment to all of these, Parks renamed the Brookville Tennis Courts for Derek Dilworth, their champion and frequent user on Friday, December 14. In doing so, Parks hopes to inspire the Epicurean spirit in the adults and children who play on the courts today.

Brookville Park is a participant in Parks and the City Parks Foundation’s citywide youth tennis, a free instruction program through which 10,000 youngsters learn to play the game each summer. It is the largest municipal tennis program in the country.

Dilworth would be proud. He too offered free lessons to neighborhood youth. And more: he helped improve the very spaces where they played. Dilworth lobbied for the Brookville Courts to be resurfaced. He repainted fences, purchased storage equipment, and even obtained fish for the park’s pond. The park, and particularly its six tennis courts, are better for having known Derek Dilworth. A member of the United States Tennis Association and the major force behind the Brookville Racket Club, Dilworth transferred his love of tennis to the people he had contact with. He also shared his professional life with neighbors. The first African American Air Traffic Controller at Kennedy Airport, Dilworth gave tours of his workplace to neighborhood children, training them for work as well as play.

Park advocates are precious to New York City and Dilworth will be remembered as a great one. Richard (Ricardo) Murphy, Queens Borough Commissioner and other Parkies met with Council Member Juanita (Idlewild) Watkins; Sally (Salmon Fish) Martino Fisher, District Manager for Community Board 13; Roy Pinkard and Derek Williams, friends of Dilworth’s; and Beverly Faber, an FAA Supervisor for JFK Airport for the renaming ceremony.

Read the press release for this event.

A new irrigation system in Saint Catherine’s Park will save labor and conserve water. Best of all, it has enabled us to plant fragrant roses, madonna lilies, and irises, flowers that require more focused care than we could previously provide. The new system includes sprinkler heads directed toward those areas that need the most water. It is timed to turn on only in the evenings, when the park sees fewer visitors. The irrigation system was installed in less than three weeks, and the funds were obtained through the energy of the Friends of St. Catherine’s Park and the generosity of the J.M. Kaplan Foundation, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Yung Wang, Dr. Harold Varmus, and Constance Casey.

Parkies and park supporters met in this 1.4-acre green space on Thursday, December 6 to celebrate the improvement. A. Gifford (Junior) Miller, Council Member; Commissioner Henry J. (StarQuest) Stern; Adrian (A-Train) Benepe, Manhattan Borough Commissioner; Thomas (Reed) Ching, Park Manager; Alison (Wheelbarrow) Bauer, Program Manager for the J.M. Kaplan Foundation; Regina Hartfield, Community Outreach and Special Projects Manager for Memorial Sloan Kettering; and Elizabeth (Camellia) Freund, Co-President of the Friends of Saint Catherine’s Park all attended.

(Monday, December 19, 1988)

Five Borough’s vehicle acquisition unit is now in the final stage of processing the arrival of nine Houlans Tree Trimmers. The new vehicles cost $76,168 each, and bring to 27 Parks’ fleet of tree trimmers. The tree trimmers will help Parks maintain the largest urban forest in the nation—an estimated 2.7 million trees, 700,000 of which line city streets.

"Water, water, everywhere

Atlantic and Pacific

But New York City’s got them beat

Our aqua is terrific!"

Jeanine Larmoth