COURIER LIFE, F DT EB. 15–21, 2019 3
BUILDING THE ECONOMY: Eleanor Rodgers, center, played with kids during one of her after-school Lego
events. Photo by Colin Mixson
BY COLIN MIXSON
She’s building a business
brick by brick!
A Kensington mom created
an after-school program and
events operation on the back
of her super-massive Lego collection
— which is so large it
defi es calculation, she said.
“One of my kids once asked
how many Legos I have, so we
did some multiplying, and
gave up after we hit 10,000,”
said Eleanor Rodgers. “I’ve
gotten a lot more Legos since
then.”
Rodgers took her entrepreneurial
turn after failing
to fi nd an appropriate afterschool
program for her Legoobsessed
son in 2015, when,
much to her surprise, she discovered
the fabled mom-clave
of nearby Park Slope did not
boast any kids clubs centered
around the world’s most popular
toy.
“I fi gured they’ve got everything
under the sun in
Park Slope, they must have a
Lego club” said Rodgers. ”But
I couldn’t fi nd one.”
So, like any super mom,
Rodgers built one herself,
creating an after-school program
that same year at PS
130, which gives kids in kindergarten
through fi fth grade
a chance to play with Legos
four days a week — and take
their creations home, she
said.
“Other Lego after-school
programs don’t do this,” Rodgers
said. “It’s one thing I objected
to about them.”
Rodgers’s program —
which costs $24 a session —
includes fi lm classes, during
which youngsters build Lego
sets and use iPads to record
and edit stop-motion footage
they then stitch together to
make short fi lms, such as the
whirlwind adventure “Pirate
Treasure,” which clocks in at
an epic four minutes and 16
seconds.
The mom used her afterschool
program as a building
block to grow her Legothemed
event business, which
now also includes birthday
parties, and camps during
many school holidays, including
the upcoming February
mid-winter break, when she
will host a four-day brickbuilding
bonanza from Feb.
19 to 22 at Greenwood Avenue’s
Holy Apostles Episcopal
Church between Prospect Avenue
and E. Seventh Street.
Rodgers’s Lego camps
all revolve around themes
— such as ninjas, medieval
castles, and even food — that
encourage kids to collaborate
to create bigger and better
creations, she said. But
tykes who attend the camps
— which cost around $60 for a
half day and $125 for a full day
— don’t get to take home their
masterpieces.
The mom-trepreneur initially
promoted her programs
as fun ways to keep kids busy,
she said. But after watching
long-time attendees signifi
cantly improve their construction
skills, as well as
their abilities to socialize and
collaborate, she now advertises
the sessions as providing
far more than a good time.
“At fi rst I was really careful
to say this is not educational,
but I’ve stopped saying
that,” she said. “The kids
who’ve been in my program a
year or two, you can tell them
from the other kids.”
Sign your kid up for Lego
camp at Holy Apostles Episcopal
Church (612 Greenwood
Ave. between Prospect Avenue
and E. Seventh Street in Kensington,
www.kensingtonlegoclass.
wordpress.com). Feb.
19–22, $60 for half-day session,
$125 for full-day session.
E-mail eleanorlego@outlook.
com to enroll.
BY COLIN MIXSON
The city must fork over the
$20 million needed to fi nish
a Sunset Park meadow offi -
cials opened years ago without
all of its promised amenities,
locals demanded.
“We have such a lack of
green space in this community,
it makes sense for us to
really get on the ball and put
pressure on the administration
and the Economic Development
Corporation,” said
Cesar Zuniga, chairman of
the local Community Board
7.
The city opened Bush
Terminal Piers Park in an
obscure, waterfront location
behind a Second Avenue pool
factory in 2014, after a more
than decade-long push from
community members.
But the park debuted
without several promised
features, including a playground,
an environmental
education center, a rain
garden designed to soak up
storm water and prevent
fl ooding, and even basic
lighting, according to residents,
who claimed the city
axed the amenities without
any notice.
At the time, reps for the
city’s Economic Development
Corporation — the
agency that owns the parkland
between 43rd and 51st
streets, which is maintained
by the Department of Parks
and Recreation — told CB7
members that roughly $2–3
million earmarked for construction
of those facilities
instead went towards cleaning
up the former toxic industrial
site, according to the
panel’s district manager Jeremy
Laufer. But the agency
never provided specifi c answers
to questions about the
incomplete amenities, Laufer
claimed.
An Economic Development
Corporation spokesman
confi rmed that unforeseen
issues with toxic soil
forced the agency to drain its
budget to fund the remediation
work, so that the park’s
grounds would not contaminate
locals when it opened.
“Over the course of the
park’s development, unforeseen
environmental issues
resulted in unexpected project
costs,” said Christian
Ficara. “The project scope
was revised to ensure that
the new park would be safe
for public recreation.”
Last year, however, the
agency sought some $26 million
needed to complete the
green space — but city bean
counters only coughed up
$6 million for more lighting
around the park, according
to Laufer, who said the sum
surprised many advocates
who mistakenly assumed offi
cials would fi nally fund the
long-awaited amenities they
already promised the community.
“Last year was the fi rst
year we were aware they
were asking for this money,
and I guess we were a little
surprised we didn’t get it,”
he said.
And now the civic leaders
are going on the offense
to get the job done, devoting
the March meeting of CB7’s
Parks Committee to planning
their blitz, which will likely
include sending members to
Council hearings, meetings
with local pols, and organizing
a letter-writing campaign
after similar tactics helped
the panel squash a 2006 plan
to cut city funding to Sunset
Park High School, according
to Laufer.
Getting Bush Terminal
Piers Park’s playground built
is of utmost importance, according
to Zuniga, who said
the recently renovated play
space within Sunset Park
is chronically overcrowded
with kids during the summer
months.
“It’s a beautiful playground,
and I’m really grateful
for some of the restoration
that’s in place now, but it just
seems really unfair,” he said
Zuniga. “This neighborhood,
it’s bursting at the seams at
all levels.”
BLOCK PARTY
Push to fi nish Bush
Kensington mom builds biz out of Lego obsession
Locals demand city fund promised
amenities in Terminal Piers Park
FINISH IT: Civic leaders on Community
Board 7 are demanding
the city fi nish work on some longawaited
amenities inside Bush
Terminal Piers Park, which opened
to locals back in 2014.
File photo by Cate Dingley
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