Riverside Park

The Daily Plant : Friday, March 23, 2001

CONTRACTOR PLANTS THE SEEDS OF RUBBLE

In a strange case of illegal dumping, a landscaping firm currently under contract to plant street trees for Parks was caught burying the concrete debris on newly acquired parkland at the edge of the Bronx River on March 19, 2001.

When Parks acquired the land at Garrison and Edgewater in the Bronx, it took two weeks of continuous work to clear it of rusted cars, cement, and dry wall. A Parks crew site closed off the site with large concrete blocks to protect it until it is developed as a park. But to one landscaping contractor, the three by four foot blocks of concrete read like the gates to a dump.

The morning of Monday, March 19, 2001 Brian (Oakman) Aucoin, Bronx River Conservation Specialist and his crew, on their way to remove illegally dumped trash from Hunts Point Riverside Park, saw that the concrete blocks at the entrance to the parkland had been moved aside and dirt spread beside them.

On his way to work the next morning, Aucoin took his eyes off the Bruckner Expressway, and spotted a pile of rubble and a front-end loader on the site. With painstaking care, a man was burying mounds of rubble and spreading piles of dirt on top. When he saw Brian, he fled from the scene leaving his front end loader unattended. At 9:30 a.m., the 41st precinct of the Police Department and Bronx PEP confiscated the front end loader and wrote summonses for trespassing and illegal dumping.

That would have been the end of the incident, but on Wednesday, March 21, 2001 the dumper had returned with a new front end loader and a sign in the window of his truck that read "working for Parks tree planting." Heavy rains had washed away the soil over his buried rubble, exposing it to view. He had returned to spread plastic over the soil. Enforcement contacted the contractor again, and he was last seen digging up the buried treasure.

William (Rockawaves) Cardoza, Director of Bronx PEP; Paul (Revere) D'Amore, Deputy Chief of Bronx Operations; Carlos (Highland) Pabon, Park Manager; and Brian Aucoin all pitched in to apprehend a turncoat contractor. Thanks, to them, a new piece of parkland is protected.

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE PARK
(Friday, April 1, 1988)

PARKS OFFERS TREATMENT
PROGRAMS FOR ALCOHOLISM

April is alcoholism month in New York City. And the Department's Employee Assistance Program (EAP) has a number of treatment programs available for Parkies who feel they may have a problem with alcohol. The following are some important facts about the disease.

--Alcoholism is New York City's number one drug problem. There are over 500,000 alcoholics in New York City and 10 million alcoholics in the United States.

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"With all his crimes blown broad, as flush as May."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Know Before You Go

Riverside Park

West 79th Street Boat Basin

Riverside Park (79th Street)