This is a community plan for re-claiming public space, and addressing pedestrian safety and vehicular congestion issues, on Ninth Avenue between 16th Street and Gansevoort Plaza.

THE PUBLIC SESSION BEGINS AT 6:30 PM. SPEAKERS’ CARDS WILL BE ACCEPTED FROM 6:00 TO 7:00 PM. Reports from the Chair, District Manager, Borough President, Standing Committees. INDIVIDUALS WHO CANNOT ATTEND ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT WRITTEN TESTIMONY IN ADVANCE TO THE BOARD OFFICE. WRITTEN TESTIMONY WILL BE PLACED INTO THE RECORD

July Committee Meetings:
7/2, 6.30pm, Environment, Public Safety & Public Health (Conference Room, 3 Washington Square Village)
7/2, 7.30pm, Waterfront (320 W. 13th Street, 4th Floor Cafeteria)
7/3, 6.30pm, Landmarks & Public Aesthetics (NYU Silver Building 32 Waverly Pl, Room 408, ID Required)
7/3, 6.30pm, Street Activity & Film Permit (Conference Room, 3 Washington Square Village)
7/9, 6.30pm, Parks, Recreation & Open Space (Church of Our Lady of Pompei, 25 Carmine Street)
7/9, 6.30pm, Sidewalks, Public Facilities & Public Access (Housing Works, 320 W. 13th Street, 4th Floor Cafeteria)
7/10, 6.30pm, Traffic & Transportation (NY Silver Building, 32 Waverly Pl, Room 408, ID Required)
7/10, 6.30pm, Business (SEIU 32BJ, 101 6th Ave, b/w Watts & Grand, 22nd Floor, Pre-conference Room
7/11, 6.30pm, Executive (Conference Room, 3 Washington Square Village)
7/12, 6.30pm, Zoning & Housing (NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Place, Room 408)
7/16, 6.30pm, Sanitation Garage Subcommittee (St. Vincent’s Hospital, 170 West 12th Street, Cafeteria)
7/16, 6.30pm, Landmarks & Public Aesthetics 2nd meeting (NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Place, Room 408)
7/19, 6.30pm, FULL BOARD, (St. Vincent’s Hospital, 170 W. 12th Street, Cronin Auditorium, ID Required)
7/30, 6.30pm, Landmarks & Public Aesthetics 1st August meeting (NYC Silver Building, 32 Waverly Place, Room 408, ID Required)

So here’s the skinny: Since our community playground, Seravalli Park, won the lottery as a host for the 5 year dig to create Shaft 27B of Water Tunnel 3 (ooh, I’m so smart and technical), we get 2 MILLION dolllars to rebuild the park after the water tunnel shaft is complete. Whenever that may be – the original finish date was Sept. 2007, and I believe we’re currently up to a Summer 2008 date. 2009 date – but I’ll check and get back to y’all.

At a meeting of CB2 last night in which public input on the Park was requested, I learned the following:

- NOT PART OF THE 2 MILLION BUDGET: Certain items will be done as part of the construction deal and do not have to be paid for out of the 2 million dollars:

Planting 6 replacement trees along Gansevoort, Replacing the Tall Fence along Gansevoort, Repaving and flattening the torn up ground part of the park, Replacing the Belgian Pavers on Gansevoort Street, Redoing the torn-up sidewalk on Gansevoort Street
- CAPITAL MONEY: This 2 Million bucks is CAPITAL money and must be used as such (ie, it cannot be used for maintenance items like a planting fund or a full-time attendant)

- PROCESS: The Parks Department will hire a landscape architect to make the design. The feedback collected last night will be written up and given to the Parks Dept, which will hopefully pass it onto the Landscape Designer. Then there will be a SCOPING meeting – not sure if public is invited to that. Then the landscape architect will present his/her DESIGN PLAN to the public at a CB2 meeting for comments/critiques/suggestions/feedback/etc.. CB2 will pass a resolution and maybe the plan will be revised and the process repeated.

- COMFORT STATION (that’s public toilet to those of us not versed in Parks Dept. lingo): If the Comfort Station is touched at all, then it has to be renovated up to current standards, which means Handicap Accessible. Apparently, making the comfort Station handicap accessible would take the lion’s share of the budget (educated guessers put the cost at 1.6 million dollars). There appear to be no plans to use the money to renovate the Comfort Station. People also really wanted a full-time attendant for the comfort station. According to one person’s experience the best way to get that is through private fundraising offered to teh city to supplement such a persons salary.

- MULTI-USE – the one thing that everyone agreed to is that they love the multi-use of the park. There are a number of teens who hang out at the picnic tables in the shade of the trees, and I would bet those trees have provided a screen for quite a few first kisses. Boys of all ages (and a few girls) crowd the baskeball hoops. Younger kids and parents hang out on the swings and playground set. The elderly and the generally lazy folk like me lounge on the benches. Nearby schools use the baseball diamond for sports, and in the twilight hourse you see families with young kids playing catch, learning baseball, tennis, lacrosse… And, dogs frolick throughout while their owners catch up with their neighbors (note: the whole dog in park thing is apparently illegal -i’ll address that separately). There are a few practitioners of Tai Chi who can regularly be seen in the Park, and on special occasions a marching band practises drills (I love those days when I get seranaded by a marching band – no actually, I really do love it!)

Some of the ideas that had support for the redesign included:

GREEN: Lots of people advocated for more greenery (softness) incorporated into the space – be in on the periphery, around the kiddie playground, in a separate (shaded) seating area…. etc…

COMMUNITY BUILDING QUIET SPACES: People would like to see community gathering areas, like the picnic tables and ‘conversation’ areas (in which benches/chairs face each other to enable conversation) in a communal area, not just in the kiddie playground where use is restricted to Children and Adults accompanying Children. One person suggested Chess tables.
KIDDIE PLAYGROUND: It is under-utlized and not age varied. Make it more accessible to toddlers by adding a softer ground surface for toddlers and swings/bouncy things appropriate for toddler age. Make it more easily accessible to users by moving the Playground Gate to the South Side of the Park where most of the residents come from (North is the commercially zoned MPD), and so that to get into the kiddie playground you don’t have to navigate your small children through the muscled gods playing on the basketball court. Make the kiddie playground safer by fencing out the Comfort Station to create better lines of sight for parents (no more hiding behind the Comfort Station) and not having everyone who wants to use the Comfort Station have to trek in and out of the kiddie playground. There was also a good suggestion to move the Picnic tables out of the Kiddie playground so that the kiddie playground really is just for “CHILDREN and ADULTS ACCOMPANYING CHILDREN,” and so anyone who wants can use the picnic tables within the rules of the playground. Have a drinking fountain in both the playground area and the main park area so both sets of users have access.

BASKETBALL – Basically the basketball rocks and we want to keep what we have and continue to let the boys in the neighborhood (and the adult boys in the neighborhood) work off their steam on the court. The one suggestion (brilliant, I think) was to switch out one of the full size basketball hoops to a short one that would be more used by the younger set (as he said, the grown men wouldn’t be caught dead playing at an 8 foot(8 foot?) basket).

BASEBALL DIAMOND – This got a little interesting. At the very end of the meeting people started to question whether they really wanted a baseball diamond anymore and whether or not it is underutilized. Some people expressed concern over having an adult size league leading to adult games leading to balls flying over the fence. Some felt that the large open space of the baseball diamond created a unique open feel in the park that they didn’t want to give up. Someone pointed out that if there wasn’t a baseball diamond the fence wouldn’t need to be so high and harsh looking. Other suggestions for part or all of this space included:

MINI Baseball Diamond: a mini’ diamond that would cater to families, but not allow full-size adult games.

VOLLEYBALL: Apparently these VBALL courts have been successful in parks on the LES. The idea is to be more Female-athlete user friendly.

DOG RUN: People with dogs who live in this neighborhood honestly do not have a nearby dog run. There are a few PRIVATE dog runs, but none for the public. They would like to put a small and large dog run on the west side of the park, along Hudson Street. While I think there is a serious necessity for a dog run for them, I’m very concerned about the amount of noise that would be caused by a formal dog run. I hate to say ‘not my backyard’ but that is sort of my thought on the matter… Couldn’t some of the old loading and unloading docks for the now defunct meat-packing plants be converted into dog runs? Those are commercial areas, so the noise shouldn’t be an issue for nearby residences since there aren’t really any…

And a few other notes of interest that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else in this REALLY long entry:

1. Hours – People would like the playground to stay open later. Currently the playground gets locked by the Parks Dept during their nightly rounds. Depending on the order in which the parks are closed on any given night, the closing time can vary considerably. A neighborhood can set their own opening and closing hours, but they then have to take responsibility for locking up and opening up each day. Locking up includes kicking out anyone in the park.

2. Signage – Lots of people don’t know what the Water Tunnel construction is. Better signage is necessary.

3. I didn’t mention this at the meeting as I just found an article about it – but I do wonder what changes will be necessary to the landscape when the water tunnel is finished. If I recall correctly, the water tunnel will leave behind two hatches and one 14 inch diameter 10 foot air vent. I don’t know if those are still planned and if so, where they are planned for – the sidewalk, street or in the park?

OK. I’m now TOTALLY exhausted from this LENGTHY write-up. Please respond with your comments about what you would and wouldn’t like to see in the park. What works? What doesn’t?

A report from one who attended:

“The presentation for the renovation of the 1-3 ..Ninth Ave property.. was actually a welcome relief from what I feared would go there.
There is an orginal house then an added stable then a back building that was put up in the late 1990′s.. Evidently the whole property needs lots of work but they want to restore the house on outside and renovate it on inside, change two little windows(on south side) to larger, historically accurate ones

Part of the property was built out without a c of o beyond the property line and that will have to be changed..and another part(back building) will have to be torn down to be replaceded by a low standing shed This shed was called a no-style building by Landmarks which means they can tear it down..The committee objected to use of too much metal and encouraged use of masonry..but we approved the scale of it .. It is not like Theory .. also it is not a bar destination but a clothing store.. Thank God for that too..”

Fig & Olive, the new Mediterranean resto (which serves over 30 olive oils – holy olive oil batman!) at 420 West 13th street, b/w Wash & 9th, is requesting permission for a sidewalk cafe to consist of 17 tables and 34 seats. That’s a lot of tables!

CB2 Business Meeting, Liquor License: Tues., 4/10 @ 6:30 PM- Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, 3 Clarkson St. 3^rd Floor

AM Operating Group, an aptly named new group formed by folks that own PM, is applying for a license at 55 Gansevoort (formerly Sascha Restaurant) as part of their grand scheme to open a 24-hour joint across the street from their successful club. Community Outrage Begins.

If you want to be a part of the process, get in now and help shape the actual process!

CB2 meetings are open to the public, so get on down there and find out about our precious park!

CORRECTION: The meeting for community outreach is Tuesday, 5/15 at 6.30pm at Housing Works!

Some of us who went to an SLA meeting last month regarding 26 Little West 12th and opposing it( same owners as One 9th) are awaiting news as to how the SLA has decided.. 26 LIttle West 12th is the garage on Little w 12…several floors of a club and across from the very large Bhudda Bar.. we’ll hope and see..