Halloween With Council Member Viverito

Hundreds of local youth and adults visited our safe, natural haven of Brook Park after-school on Halloween. With pumpkins provided by the NYC Department of Parks and recreation and a DJ funded through the Office of Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito, our community had a great family celebration. With healthy fruit alternatives to sugar candy, apple bobbing and marshmallow roasting under the changing leaves, it was a holiday to remember!

Brook Park hosts Tribes of Humanity gathering

Tribes of Humanity was a phenomenal success.. We glimpsed into the potential of our unity and beauty of our extended Community.. the reality is,
It is all about you, about us, the village, the Tribe, the Collective, the People indeed we have arrived. Our voices were heard, our drums were touched, we peered into one another’s Souls, we healed, we made music, we talked and connected, we grew, we evolved. We practiced ancient traditions & Native Ways ashe ashe as our Ancestors say ashe… ashe we came together that day in a sacred yet festive way…

The drums sounded reflecting the rhythms of the Earth
The smoke signals arose
Children’s laughter
Chopped wood
The Grandfather stones
Our bundles of Prayer
A sacred haven in the South Bronx called Brook Park
We stood in council
We honored the 4 winds and our Ancestors
African Aboriginal locks and Native Indigenous feathers mingled as one
There was honor and wisdom

A bond was made, an unspoken pact was drawn within ourselves, an innerstanding of our connection as children of the Earth that we are all Brothers and Sisters, Indeed this was the beginning of something special..

That day we entered Mother Earth’s womb and were reborn we’ve arrived the birth of a Tribe
Tribe of Humanity

This is when it gets interesting, that was the beginning stay tuned

Tito Kayak paddles the South Bronx with FoBP!

Friends of Brook Park was honored to outfit and guide the world renowned
environmental activist Tito Kayak of the Vieques movement, and other
efforts, on an exclusive tour of the waterways of the South, South Bronx.
The trip went south on the Harlem River, through the Bronx Kill, and into
the East River with a shoreline tour of North Brother Island. With a 4 foot
striped bass, swans, hawks, environmental devastation of Randall's Island
and more! Strong language. And freestyle rap at the end by Tito himself!
With BronxNet Director Michael aboard.

See the con ed electric feeder lines that block the Bronx Kill and prohibit
easy navigation between the East and Harlem Rivers.

Join our efforts to free the Bronx Kill, create official water access in the
South, South Bronx and preserve Randall's Island!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVyvHr69ek4


**See Tito Kayak's escape from police via kayak after a week long vigil on a
crane to halt development of luxury hotels in Puerto Rico that would have
ended public access to paddled and surfed beaches at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzoP-cKQaCI

Artificial Turf: DANGER!

October 3, 2008

Honorable members of the City Council, Scott Stringer, Borough President of Manhattan and Board Member of Randall's
Island Sports Foundation (RISF) and Aimee Boden, the Executive Director of the RISF:

I appreciate your attendance or that of your representatives at the City Council Parks and Recreation Committee meeting on
Monday, September 22nd, 2008 entitled Oversight of the Randall's Island Sports Foundation and the NYC Parks
Department.

Dr. Crain - a psychologist, who has studied the impacts of lead ingestion by children on their development - provided
testimony that requires your immediate attention as he addressed the real dangers of exposure to lead in synthetic turf fields
in our city. It is therefore worthy of recapping to you.

In his public statements to you on the record (attached for your reference), Dr. Crain announced that the toxicity of
synthetic turf being used by both the Parks Department of Parks and Recreation and the RISF is significant having reached
dangerous levels of lead in both the polyethelene 'blades' and the pellets forming the base or cushion of the turf. A
peer-reviewed study to be published in the Journal of Exposure Science in November (also attached) provides more details
of these findings.

As Dr. Crain noted, esteemed heath scientists such as Philip J. Landrigan, Bruce Lanphear, and R.L. Canfield say there may
be no safe level of lead exposure. Even low levels can damage the child's developing nervous system. Dr. Crain called for
a moratorium on new installations until much more research has been conducted.

Public officials responsible for approving, monitoring or halting the use of synthetic turf also have the responsibility to take
actions to warn the public about this danger and should ensure at the very least that children under the age of 6 years are
kept from the fields until more is known.

Please take note that notice to you of such serious findings require immediate action for both legal and moral reasons and
that your positions as public officials do not insulate you from reckless actions you take in response to this new peer-
reviewed scientific data.

Would you please let me know what steps you are taking to inform the relevant city engineers and commissioners of this
matter and what steps they in turn are taking to remove this environmental threat to the health of those exposed to synthetic
turf?

Thank you for your good work.

Robert Jereski
Co-founder
New York Climate Action Group