Redo of Father Demo Park Crappy, It Turns Out

When they unveiled Greenwich Village's Father Demo Square in the summer of 2007, after a lengthy renovation process, there was much jubilation. People largely welcomed the stylish new park, with its fancy paving stones and central fountain. I myself thought it was a fine job, an improvement.

But, just into what is only its second winter, the park is not holding up well. On a recent rainy night, I looked down, wondering why my progress through the square seemed so rocky—I was losing my footing again and again. Dozens of the gray, hexigonal paving stones had fallen out of place. Some has sunk slightly below their original level. Others had risen up. Many were very loose, so loose they could easily have been taken out of the pathway.

The uneven pavement was in evidence all around the square. Larger, black, square stones were also off their moorings. A elderly Villager stopped next to me while I took pictures. She knew what I was doing. "It's terrible," she said. "Look at the bad job they did. They should have kept it the way it way. This is terrible." As an old lady, she was having trouble keeping her balance as she walked along the square.



The last two winters have hardly been harsh. Paving should be able to hold up to worse weather than this. Accounts say landscape architect George Vellonakis did the redesign of Father Demo Square. Vellonakis also designed the highly unpopular Washington Square Park renovation plan. The job cost taxpayers $1,455,000. What did he use to put the stones into place—Elmer's glue?

Homeless Monuments at Battery Park

At the edge of the Battery Park playground near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, fenced in near a small Parks building, are two sad marble monuments that were some time ago uprooted from their natural resting places. They are now encircled by a chain-link fence and hundreds of stacked chairs.

One is very clearly a monument to Coast Guard members who served during World War II. The second is harder to decipher. Many chairs block the English inscription on one side, but the Italian writing on another side is clearly visible. It seems to be in honor of the explorer Giovanni Da Verrazzano, the man who gave his name to our bridge. There are news records of a Verrazzano monument being dedicated in Battery Park in 1909, and that is the date on the stone. A torso-up sculpture of the explorer, created by Ettore Ximenes, once sat on top of the stone. It was apparently removed from its place where the Liberty Island boats are launched sometime in the 1930s, and then stored. When its existence was rediscovered, it was brought into the light again and placed once more in Battery Park.

The Parks Department currently shows a picture of the monument in its former place with no explanation as to why it's be displaced. It also shows the Coast Guard monument in its former location, near the Southern entrance path to the park. It was dedicated in 1955 and also once had a statue atop the stone. This , however, contains an explanation: "The memorial has been temporarily placed in storage to accommodate the redesign of Battery Park and the construction of the South Ferry subway station, and will be placed on Heroes Walk at State and Pearl Streets near the Coast Guard Building. It is anticipated that this work will take place around 2009."

"Storage"? "2009"?

It's one thing to temporarily place unnecessary or inconvenient statues in monuments in warehouses for a time. It's another thing to let them sit out in the open among chairs and junk, so the public can readily witness how little the Park Department thinks of them.

Trying to Play Ball

Just as I was thinking it was time to hear something from the Red Hook Ballfield Food Vendors, the Daily News prints a program report. And, little surprise, the news ain't that good.

According to the daily, City officials have begun seeking bids for selling food in Red Hook Park, just as they said they would. And they are welcoming a bid from the vendors, just as they said they would. But the bid rules apparently require that all applicants "use approved food-preparation carts or trucks, which vendors estimate will cost $15,000 to $30,000 per stand"—which is not quite what the City said they would do.

Anyone who's been to the park knows that conventional food-selling trucks and carts won't cut it for the specialized Latin sellers, many of whom who use long grills to prepare their tacos, papusas and huaraches. As one vendor said, "We're not just boiling hotdogs." The vendors also fear that the silvery vehicles will take away from the the rustic charm of the scene, which no doubt they probably would.

Applications are due Feb. 22.

The only encouraging thing in the article is a comment from the vendors' most high-powered friend, Sen. Charles Schumer, who last summer held a press conference in Red Hook Park. He said, "The city must work with the vendors to create a plan that benefits everyone involved, not just the city's bottom line." Nice sentiment, but, unfortunately, the past has shown that the Parks Dept.'s Adrian Benepe doesn't really give a damn what Schumer thinks. And certainly Mike "I like Subway-I eat Cheeze-Its" Bloomberg isn't paying attention.

Times Notices Bryant Park is City's Jolly Green Whore

There was an interesting item in Sunday's New York Times about the "commercialization" of the City's public parks. Nice to know that the Parks Department's standing practice of renting out Bryant Park to every Tom, Dick and Gisele now has a name.

The article says that people are started to grouse that Manhattan's best parks being given over not to the people, but to the beautiful people; Fashion Week seems to last all year at Bryant Park. Which is not to say the Park people don't think of the hoi polloi, too; hence the recent "DockDogs" show, which promoted the "sport" of dog diving. (Where are the cockfighting opponents when you need them?)

The result is that our parks are rarely just, you known, parks. They're circuses or bazaars and sales floors. Of five proposed fall events in the Community Board 5's district—which includes Bryant Park, Madison Square Park and Union Square Park, the board supported just one, according to the Times. "Of the four the board rejected, the Parks Department approved one and allowed another to take place in a different park." Way to listen to the people.

But, then, what should we expect during the Bloomberg Era, when every part of the people's city will be sold out to a wealthy private interest for the right price. As William Castro, the Manhattan parks commissioner, said: the parks benefited from the sponsorships or money these events produce.