Willowbrook Park

The Daily Plant : Tuesday, July 16, 2002

CAPITAL PROJECT OF THE MONTH: EMERGENCY WELLS

The Capital Project of the Month for June is the construction of emergency city-wide wells. A total of four wells will be drilled on Parks property in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island where groundwater was determined to be located. The water yielded will be a drought-friendly source of non-potable water, water that cannot be consumed, that will be used to water plants and flowers in parks.

The parks in the project are Inwood Hill Park in upper Manhattan, Van Cortlandt Crotona Parks in the Bronx, and Willowbrook Park in Staten Island. The wells will be as deep as 320 feet, in Inwood Hill Park, to as shallow as just 47 feet, in Van Cortlandt Park. Interestingly, the wells at Inwood Hill Park and Crotona Park will be drilled into bedrock, a dolomite rock that can have fractures and channels able to transport water.

The project is funded by Mayor Bloomberg and will take only 60 days to complete. New York City is currently in a Stage 1 Drought Emergency. As of July 14, the reservoirs that serve New York City were 84.6 percent full and at this time of year the normal percentage is 93.6. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) suggests that New Yorkers install water-savings fixtures on toilets and showerheads, take shorter showers, and report all leaks directly to the DEP.

Read more about the June Capital Project of the Month.

HISTORIC HOUSE TRUST ACQUIRES TWO NEW HOUSES

The Historic House Trust has recently acquired two new houses. They are Hendrick I. Lott House in Marine Park, Brooklyn and the Brougham-Mallien Cottage in Blue Heron Park on Staten Island.

The Lott House, a Dutch farmhouse dating from 1800, is in dire need of physical restoration. Funds secured from the state through the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation and the city through the Parks Capital Division will allow the Trust to restore the exterior of the Lott House while Artie Rollins and Parks Requirements restore the roof. The Historic House Trust is also working to create a preliminary interpretive plan for exhibitions and educational programming at the Lott House. This plan will focus on the 300 years of Lott family history - which so nearly parallels the history of Brooklyn – and has been generously funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Brougham-Mallien Cottage is a vernacular 19th century house filled with antiques collected by Walter Mallien, the Cottage’s last private owner, during his sixty years as a Staten Island resident. Parks Requirements, under the supervision of the Historic House Trust, is replacing the Brougham Cottage roof and repainting the Cottage exterior to ensure that the structure will be preserved for generations to come. An Historic House Trust interpretive plan is also in the works and will be announced at a later date.

(Tuesday, July 25, 1989)

Risking life and limb, a Parkie tried to save the life of a youngster who was hit by a train and later died in a Queens hospital.

Ranger Paul Moroz was riding the Number 7 train on Friday, June 23. As the train idled at the 40^th Street Station in Queens, he heard the frantic calls of two young boys.

"They were yelling ‘We lost our friend, we lost our friend!" Moroz said. Without thinking, the Parkie jumped out of the subway car and ran to the front of the train. Underneath the tracks, Moroz found 15-year-old Damen Page, who was bleeding profusely from two head gashes. Moroz ripped his shirt off, and using basic first-aid techniques he had learned as a Ranger, tried to staunch the bleeding.

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"When two people love each other, they don’t look at each other,
they look in the same direction."

(July 16, 1911-1995)