Central Park

The Daily Plant : Wednesday, August 23, 2000

BENEFACTORS PLAY BALL AT THE DAVID CONE FOUNDATION SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT

Photograph by Jamye (Focus) Ford

On Monday, August 21, Commissioner Henry J. (StarQuest) Stern visited Heckscher Ball Fields for the third annual David Cone Foundation Softball Tournament. The event, organized by New York Yankees Pitcher David Cone, is designed to raise money for a variety of charitable organizations.

Last year's tournament raised more than $100,000. This year's event raised funds for the Central Park Conservancy, the City Parks Foundation, the ALS Foundation, which benefits victims of Lou Gehrig's Disease, the Baseball Assistance Team, which supports retired baseball players and their families in need, the Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center, the St. Jude's Research Hospital, and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The corporations involved in the day's competitions included Chase Bank, Compaq Computers, Benzel Busch Mercedes Benz Dealership, Gaines Berland, LaBranche & Co., Major League Baseball, Merrill Lynch, Moisan Architects, Microsoft, and Swiss Cap.

Parks has more than 150 fields for regulation and little league play, twenty-six of which are located in Central Park. This park got its first ball field more than 77 years ago to the excitement of hundreds of onlookers and eager players. Today, after the recent renovation of 12 ball fields on the North Meadow, baseball and softball are played in Central Park more than ever.

PARKS EMPLOYEES SWIM TO VICTORY

Several Parks employees participated in swimming contests over the weekend. At the Manhattahn Island Foundation's Battery Park One Mile Swim-a race from South Cove in Battery Park City to Pier 25 in Hudson River Park-Senior Inspector Kevin (Cowboy) McClone swam in 25:34 and was the second male to finish in his age group. Brooklyn Chief of Operations Nancy (Liberty) Barthold swam in 27:49 and was the third female to finish in her age group.

Congratulations also to Parks Electrician Danny Moon, who won the Early Bird Lap Swim race for the seventh year in a row. In addition to keeping up his remarkable winning streak, he also swam the most laps citywide of everyone in the Early Bird Lap Swim Program.

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE PLANT
(Wednesday, August 26, 1987)

HOMELESS YOUTH RECREATION PROGRAM SERVES HUNDREDS OF CITY CHILDREN

Though the summer day camp run by Parks' Homeless Youth Recreation program will end on Friday, September 4, rest assured that with the onset of fall, a new program will resume. Now in its fourth year, the Homeless Youth Recreation program offers children ages 6-14, whose families are temporarily housed by the City in hotels, healthy, supervised education and recreation. "The Homeless Youth Recreation program, the only program of its kind on the East Coast, initially started as a summer day camp in Manhattan," said the program's director Joanne Kaplan. "It began in 1984 and was so successful, that it later expanded into a year-long program."

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.

Walter Pater (1839-1894)

Know Before You Go

Harlem Meer Center (formerly Lasker Rink)

Harlem Meer Center