G’voort playing field is in play
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
A recently released summary of
community feedback on the design
of Gansevoort Peninsula is
inaccurate, according to Community
Board 2 residents.
The summary drafted by the Hudson
River Park Trust states that community
members want the 5.56-acre space to
sport a soccer fi eld, open green space
and some sort of water-related feature,
such as a beach or intertidal habitat.
The peninsula is a remnant of when
Manhattan’s Lower West Side extended
out to a 13th Ave. It is located between
Gansevoort and Little W. 12th
Sts., across from the Whitney Museum
of American Art.
Since early March, the Trust and its
contracted designers, James Corner
Field Operations, have held a presentation,
a Q&A session and two small
group-planning events to solicit community
input, with the most recent of
these on March 26.
“Most of the small working groups
— even those dominated by people with
strong preferences for particular program
elements — endeavored to create
balanced ‘plans’ for Gansevoort,”
the Trust’s summary says regarding the
March 26 event.
“In the end, all groups had some
form of beach and a variety of fi eld sizes
to accommodate passive recreation
and other desired programs.
“For a huge constituency, the size
of the site supports the strong request
for large sports fi elds. The Trust and
design team have been made aware of
the community petition signed by more
than 2,000 individuals requesting a
fi eld measuring 75 x 120 yards (225 x
360 feet) as the highest priority for the
site.”
The majority of attendees at last
week’s C.B. 2 Parks and Waterfront
Committee meeting said that, with
a general lack of soccer fi elds in the
borough, plus the future of Pier 40 unclear,
a sports fi eld is desperately needed.
Most were willing to compromise
“balance” in order to secure a full-sized
soccer fi eld.
Brainstorming park ideas for Gansevoort Peninsula at the workshop
was a handful.
At the March 26 planning event,
which ran three hours, the Trust set
up tables inside the new 75 Morton St.
middle school, and community members
broke into small groups. They
placed paper cutouts of a soccer fi eld,
trees and fences, among other things,
on cardboard maps of the peninsula.
Participants said that access to the
water was important, as well as green
space. But there was a strong sentiment
among those present for the playing
fi eld, which could accommodate a
range of sports, including soccer and
baseball. Before the event began, representatives
from the Downtown Soccer
League spoke about the need for a fi eld.
Every table of participants made sure to
place a soccer fi eld on their map.
According to Rich Caccappolo,
chairperson of the C.B. 2 Parks and
Waterfront Committee, the committee
was given the impression that a Trust
representative would formally present
the summary’s fi ndings at last week’s
PHOTO BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
meeting. Instead, a Trust representative
— its senior vice president of design
and construction — listened to
community members speak about the
summary and answered a few questions
at the end.
The summary and the absence of a
formal presentation by a representative
left many community members
skeptical of the Trust’s intentions on
Gansevoort. Several attendees were
unaware that a Trust representative
was present at the meeting. Although
the Trust V.P. was there and took questions,
by all accounts he did not do a
good job of identifying himself to the
meeting.
Daniel Miller, a member of the C.B.
2 committee, said he did not become
aware until afterward that a Trust offi
cial had actually been there. Miller
added he would have liked to have seen
more representation of the Trust’s senior
leadership at the meeting — such
as Madelyn Wils, the Trust’s president,
and/or Noreen Doyle, its senior vice
president — as well as someone from
James Corner, the chosen designers for
the project.
In fact, Will Rogers, president of
Downtown Soccer League, warned
that “special interests” could well be
angling for the prime park space, enabled
by the Trust.
“At this time in our lives,” Rogers
said, “when we are looking at what is
going on with government and the challenges
that are being faced between the
choices of special interests and what is
best for the community…this is a microcosm
of our entire country’s future
playing out in a small way here.”
Some attendees at the committee
meeting speculated that the Trust
wants to please neighbors of the park,
such as the Whitney Museum. The
Whitney will be installing “Day’s End,”
a sculpture of a “ghost pier” by artist
David Hammons, off the south edge of
Gansevoort.
A Trust spokesperson, though, said
that the planned Whitney installation
“does not limit other programming
decisions at Gansevoort.”
“We are looking for a design that
makes more for the local community
and less a destination,” Caccappolo
said. He added that the a park on Gansevoort
should be a space to get away
from the madness of nearby attractions
like the High Line.
“We hope that the Trust will not just
engage with us but consult us on how
to best strike that desire,” he stated.
The Parks and Waterfront Committee
is currently drafting a resolution
on the status of community desires
for Gansevoort Peninsula that will be
presented at the next C.B. 2 full-board
meeting.
“We appreciate all the input we’ve
received for the Gansevoort Peninsula
project thus far,” the Trust spokesperson
said. “These meetings are designed
to provide a forum for community
members and general public to share
thoughts and ideas for the project, and
we encourage everyone to participate.
We are now working with our designers
and engineers on a feasible concept
design.”
Two wounded in shooting outside S.O.B.’s
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
Two men were shot during a fi ght
outside S.O.B.’s music club early
Thursday morning, police said.
According to the New York Post, the
suspect, believed to be in his 20s, approached
the crowd and started fi ring
bullets around 1:40 a.m. in front of
the club, at Varick and Houston Sts. A
26-year-old was wounded in the chest
and abdomen while a 29-year-old was
struck in his upper thigh, according to
police, the Post reported.
Police said the gunman fi red four to
fi ve shots.
The victims were treated at Bellevue
Hospital and reportedly expected to
survive.
The suspect fl ed westbound on
Houston St. He was described as a male
black with his hair in braids, wearing a
white T-shirt, dark-colored pants and
white sneakers.
It was not immediately clear what led
to the shooting, authorities said.
S.O.B.’s, which stands for Sounds
of Brazil, previously was rocked by a
shooting on Sept. 12, 2013.
Four people suffered nonfatal bullet
wounds — two with leg wounds, two
others with graze wounds — in that
incident, which sparked a chaotic, mad
rush for the exit by frightened clubgoers,
during which some were trampled
and left with cuts.
The shots, reportedly from a single
gunman, broke out just after midnight,
right before the rapper Fat Trel was
set to take the stage to perform cuts
from his new mixtape, “SDMG” (Sex,
Drugs, Money, Guns).
Schneps Media TVG May 16, 2019 3