play and ideas: September 2021

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Save East River Park, Lockdown in the Park. #SaveEastRiverPark

Lockdown at City Hall Park to save the trees.@speakercoreyjohnson #holdahearing #saveeastriverpark

We started getting flyers a few days ago.

JK passed a few out during the Sustainable Urbanism talk on Saturday.

Everyone met at 7 AM in City Hall Park, with a simple message:

Speaker Johnson hold an oversite hearing over the fate of East River Park.

The community had a plan that protected the trees, supporting biodiversity, and resilience.

And then that disappeared. The current plan is to cut down a hundred mature trees.

Hold an oversite hearing on the destruction of this beloved park and a hundred trees.

Go back to the community plan, by Rebuild by Design.

At a time when the world is in flux, we know trees fight climate change:

According to the Arbor Day Foundation:

“As trees grow, they help stop climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the air, storing carbon in the trees and soil, and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. Trees provide many benefits to us, every day. They offer cooling shade, block cold winter winds, attract birds and wildlife, purify our air, prevent soil erosion, clean our water, and add grace and beauty to our homes and communities.”

As Norman Siegel said on Sunday at the rally for Elizabeth Street Garden, we need every tree in the fight against climate change. 70% of NYC is concrete, which cannot absorb water. We need trees and parks to absorb water and carbon.

For open space equity, for mental health, for the climate, save East River Park, declared activists.

We’ve rallied; we’ve written letters. And today, two locked themselves to tree just outside city hall, a few feet from the steps inside.

Hold an oversite hearing, they demanded.

Save our park, save the trees.

Save the city.

According to Sixth Street Community Center:

“The park has long been the oasis for our extremely diverse Lower East Side Community.
Many residents consider a loss of the park as an essential loss to their quality of life and well being. The demolition of the East River Park is a climate justice issue, as it will inequitably cut off access to 58 acres of green space. Demolishing the park would cut down almost 1000 mature trees, and destroy the biodiversity that currently exists there. This includes 82 bird species, 96 insect species, and more than 200 plant species. If you are familiar with this climate justice fight, you may have already read about the City’s plan to bulldoze the entire East River Park in the August issue of the Indypendent. The community in collaboration with Rebuild By Design developed an earlier plan which was more reflective of our diverse community and our diverse needs. The community plan was more comprehensive in providing flood protection without destroying the entire park. This community plan was fully trashed by the city and they are now planning to bring in the bulldozers …. But together we can stop this misguided and destructive scheme. The park would be closed for a minimum of 3.5 years, but given the city’s track record of projects in the past— the community is concerned that this timeline isn’t realistic given the size of the proposed project and that the park will be closed for much, much longer. During those years of closure, there will be no access to playing fields, no family picnics, and gatherings, no trees, no plants, and no animals……make sure that the city rebuilds our park in a way that addresses temporary and long-term flood protection, park preservation and climate justice.

WAYS YOU CAN HELP STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ENTIRE EAST RIVER PARK:
…
§ We want true independent experts to assess the City’s plan, including the impact of destroying 60 acres of land on nature and people!
§ We want the City to revisit the options preferred by the community and to re-envision the FDR Drive now: Build the flood wall in or along the FDR Drive, expand our park with decking over the FDR and have dedicated bus lanes for non-polluting electric buses!”

"Activists chained themselves around a tree at City Hall Park on September 28, 2021 demanding City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to hold an immediate Oversight Hearing on the destruction of the East River Park. Activists and residents are trying to protect the 1000 mature trees in East River Park now set for demolition. The system plans to make more room for cars and cement, but underestimates the value of the natural resources, which cool the climate, hold precious water, and provide habitat for innumerable creatures, herbs, and flowers." (Photo and caption by Erik McGregor)

Elissa Jiji noted, "Rolled up late to an early morning gathering outside City Hall, to join neighbors demanding that Speaker Corey Johnson grant permission for CMs Gennaro and Brannan to hold their oversight hearing on the plan to raze East River Park (whew, that's a mouthful!) There are so many unanswered questions resulting from the city's swticheroo three years ago, when the prior resiliency plan was scrapped and the project ballooned to 1.45b on some flimsy-sounding justifications. Meanwhile, Johnson has apparently been in MA all summer. If he needs time to tend to his own wellbeing, that's fine; he should take leave and have someone else take over for the rest of his term."

"One day you finally knew what you had to do... as you strove deeper and deeper into the world," wrote Mary Oliver.

All morning, we walked about the Morgan Library, taking in the Shahzia Sikander scrolls and extraordinary-realities, Mom perusing the old books, with dreams of Versailles.

It had been a full week of catching up, a meeting inside of Barbes as it rained, greeting Josh and Greg and Erik and Emily, talking with Mark on the stoop, chatting away with my friends. Friday, Caroline and I jumped on the bikes for a a trip to Valentino Pier on Friday, looking at the water, thinking about the Brooklyn Tides.

In between it all, getting ready for our Saturday conversation on Sustainable Urbanism with LA Kaufman at Grace Gallery on 192 Avenue C.

The Rise and Resist crew were on their way from their picnic.

Anne Christine was back in town after eluding Ida in New Orleans,

Leslie Cagan, iconic anti-war organizer, sat talking about her memories, worlds of my New York converging.

Dee Dee introduced the space, welcoming everyone, reminding us of the ripples of good ideas growing from this urban laboratory of green gardens and bioswayles and energy bikes, and beneficial succession.

LA Kauffman and I talked about what it all meant, trying to trace this story of activism from identity based movements into post modernism back to dialectics of race and class, from the Lower East Side Community Gardens to the Occupy Wall Street Sustainability Committee, Occupy the Pipeline, Occupy Sandy, the People's Climate March, and the trip to Paris for COP21, the Bataclan Terrorist attacks of November 2015, unleashing a whirling double helix of crises, states of emergency, and protests. And so Sustainable Urbanism was born. The clash is everywhere I thought. Why all the reoccurring conflicts? It would take years to get the book unstuck.

LA and I talked about the Community Gardens of the Lower East Side as a case study and a route toward a more livable urbanism. The immediately aroused a backlash.

"Welcome to the era after communism" said Rudy Giuliani, suggesting that community gardens, and by extension, the commons had to be substituted for affordable housing.

First he took on the gardens, then he took on democracy, standing outside of Four Seasons Total Landscaping and a porno shop, condemning the election results.

The community garden movement represented community controlled green space, as a threat to neoliberal urbanism.

Fight after fight.

For developers, the libraries felt like a similar socialist threat, to be privatized and gutted. But the Library Lovers prevailed.

On and on Kaufman and I explored two decades of waves of actions and intersecting crises from the Lower East Side Collective to Reclaim the Streets, to a Global Justice movement, that turned into a Global Peace and Justice Movement, and Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matters and struggles to defend urban libraries as a commons, and on and on, throughout ever shifting, ever slitting understandings of our movements.

Each of the struggles feel connected in this dance of the dialectic, between the fight for East River Park and Governor's Island and East River Park.

JK was passing out a flyer for an action on Tuesday.

Yet what keeps you going?

There is a wealth of power in the soil, said JK. Its a source of power for me.

System change, not climate change, we declared before Flood the System in 2014.

Yet, we have not really had system change, noted Kauffman.

Still, movements ebb and flow, ever evolving along with their targets, culture clashes, dialectic splits, and mergers. Our contradictions are ever connected within a messy duality, woven together between trauma and change. Our stories offer a bit of a poetic refusal.

"You are bunch of white people!" screamed an onlooker, pointing out that ways gardens beautify and occasionally displace in this concrete jungle.

"I've taken 35 years for someone to call me a white asshole," said Erik afterwards. "I am not going to give up that privilege."

After the talk, the Rise and Resist crew made their way to see Patti Smith play at the endangered Elizabeth Street Garden.

And everyone gossiped after the talk, walking down to ABC for beer and chat, a magic day with LA and Megan and Caroline and Mary M and Ken and Babs and Judy and Karl and Jenny and Jessica and on and on into the evening. Karl and I talked about Buy Nothing Day 1999. And all the other book readings I've been lucky enough to have my friends join me for.

By Sunday, we ventured out for bagels, and trip back to Judson for the first time in ages.

Be quick to listen and not speak.

Re imagine ourselves, build something new.

Looking about, it was hard thinking Doris, whose obit was in the day's times, and Bob Thomason, whose funeral was the day before, and Donna were no longer about.

Change is all we have.

Down the street, and East on Spring I rode to Elizabeth Street Garden, where the city has been trying to evict the garden.

"Every tree counts in the fight against climate change," said Normam Siegel, reminding us 70% of New York is paved in concrete. The earth absorbs water, helping us survive and cope.

Tim and Mel. were hanging out in the West Village, wondering about why fate has given them what its given them.

And comrades from all over the city were saying goodbye to Stanley in Prospect Park.

The only constant is change.

And Caroline met me for a pint and we toasted them all in the hot September afternoon.

Next Saturday, we will be telling stories at El Jardin Paraiso at 4 PM.

See you there.