Unique Harris turns the sprig of basil over between his fingers. He takes a sniff, pops it into his mouth, chews for a few seconds, then flashes a thumbs-up to the rest of the kids gathered in Brook Park, a community garden in the South Bronx. Unique has a goal: to taste every vegetable, herb, and fruit on offer.

Photo by Sara Stathas

In this part of the Bronx, fast food dominates the landscape. You can smell something deep-fried and sweet from inside the nearby Brook Avenue subway station, and there’s a McDonald’s next to the exit. Around the corner, a produce market sells droopy celery, bruised eggplant, and tomatoes that are more pink than red.
For Unique, the Brook Park garden offers a chance to experience food right off the vine. Today he’ll sample mint, strawberries, and kale….
For the rest of this great article, and a slideshow of pics, click here.

Joe Perez, Director of Freedom Community Center, Cedric Loftin, District Manager of Community Board #1, Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito, Dawn Cherry, Friends of Brook Park parent, Diana Ayala of Council Member Viverito's staff

The block hosts three schools in one building, with two parks, Saw MIll and Brook Parks. Between the parks is the place where many students and neighborhood children cross the street, and it is a stretch where cars speed to make the light after passing a speed bump much further west.

We have worked to have a speed bump at this location. This week, Council Member Viverito brought the Bronx Commissioner of the NYC Department of Transportation to meet with us on the block.

She committed to right away:

improving signage

enhancing safe street paint

a shield on the traffic light so the color is not visible from far away

and to look into the possibility of a speed-bump if the space allows for it within their constraints. A distance from street lights, driveways, sewer and electric manholes is required. But if it is possible they will do it!

This is a dangerous stretch at times. FoBP was asked to do something by many residents after they repeatedly saw near accidents on the street.

Thanks to all involved!

Many have celebrated the recent moratorium bill passed in the NYS Senate. It is not a a law, and has not even passed the Assembly and been signed by the Governor.

We need a BAN, not a moratorium. If elected officials think it is dangerous, why not pass a BAN now? Or they could introduce the Ban law at least. All the other talk about how they will sue, or only if it is safe, etc etc is a distraction, don’t fall for it!

Many savvy environmentalists are concerned that the moratorium bill was drafted in part by the polluting industry to slow down the movement and progress being made for a BAN.

Many “green” groups are going along with that strategy, ready to declare victory and solicit more contributions for their “action”. I

n the meantime they will try to broker a deal to have “safe” drilling in “some” parts of the state.

Sign up for the hearing and say: “What is the PLAN for a BAN?”
Town Hall:
Hydrofracking & Natural Gas Drilling in New York State

Tuesday, August 24th , 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC)
199 Chambers Street
(Between Greenwich St & West Side Highway)

At this public meeting, residents will have the opportunity to comment on the proven health and environmental dangers of hydraulic drilling.

While the EPA is holding hearings elsewhere in the State, none have been proposed for New York City. This town hall will provide you an important opportunity to raise your questions and concerns about how to get a state-wide BAN on toxic gas drilling and our food and watersheds are not destroyed.

Please RSVP Friday, August 20th to:
events@council.nyc.gov or (212) 788-6871

by Rebekah McCabe <

On Tuesday, August 10th the NYC Parks Department convened a public hearing to solicit the testimonies of community gardeners regarding proposed new rules and regulations that threaten the preservation of the city’s gardens granted under the 2002 Spitzer agreement.
 
Meeting early in the morning, Brook Park gardeners and their friends, families and supporters met to make the journey together from the South Bronx downtown to the Chelsea Rec Center to attend the public hearing. United in their opposition to the proposed new rules, they carried hand-painted signs demanding that the City offer permanent protection to all gardens, and bore a cornucopia of flowers, fruit and vegetables freshly picked from Brook Park.

by Rebekah McCabe

Video review:

Radio Interview with Commissioner Benepe on Brian Lehrer

We are winning. Keep calling your elected officials!

Speaker Quinn
212-788-7210

We send a lot of interesting things, but this one touches us! Spread it on the streets, twitter and facebook.

This is very URGENT.

All gardens, many just like Brook Park, are subject to destruction after September 2010.

This is us in the NYTimes explaining the situation:

These are fliers you can print and share, thanks to Brielle:

English:

Spanish:

We printed both sides some 5,000. We have some available for pick up, or reasonable drop off, or just print and share. Let me know offlist.

Please do the action. Contact Cm Viverito, we hear she is very progressive from lots of allies and friends.

Below is the text too.

Attend a meeting, here it is:

Come to the Community Garden Planning Meeting:
Monday, July 19th
156 Rivington Street between Clinton and Suffolk Streets
First Floor
7:30
This is the famous ABC No Rio building on Loisaida, occupied in the 80’s and won as a community space.

Finally here is the text of the flier and action, let us know the results too. Please call and email:

All gardens could be bulldozed!
Pass a law to preserve all of them now!

We need a law to preserve ALL gardens. We do not need new rules
that allow development of condominiums. malls and [ails, We need
green open space now and for our grandchildren.

Take action today! Call or email:

Parks Committee Chair:
Melissa Mark Viverto
MViverito@council.nyc.gov
212.828.9800

For more information visit us, friendsofbrookpark.org

When Mott Haven resident Lee Rivera saw a fledging red-tail hawk fall form its nest on top of an air-conditioner on 149th Street, he knew to contact local environmental organization Friends of Brook Park. He rescued the raptor from traffic on Third Avenue and brought the shocked bird to Brook Park Danny Chervoni, respected for his love of animals.

Friends of Brook Park had previously hosted a presentation of animal species native to the area, the Urban Divers, and so Mr. Chervoni knew that the The Urban Divers/Harlem River Ecology Center Environmental Program Director  Ludger K.Balan is a licensed falconer and able to handle and care for such birds. The bird was safely delivered and will be rehabilitated and released into the wild as soon as it is able. PDF here

Photos here.

A South Bronx community group plans to reseed the waterway with oysters and mussels and, in the process, revive the polluted waterway, which separates the Bronx from Randalls Island.

The group – Friends of Brook Park – is waiting for word on a $50,000 grant from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

“This would expose more people to the wonder of our waterways,” said Harry Bubbins, who runs the Mott Haven group.

The oysters won’t be fit for human consumption, but could help clean the narrow Bronx Kill, which has been devastated by dumping, sewage and landfill.

Because the crusty bivalves are filter feeders – sucking in water and slurping algae and plankton from it – a square foot of oysters can filter 2,000 gallons of water per day.

They also form reefs, which shelter fish, crabs and shrimp – more than 70 animal species all together, said Paul Mankiewicz of the Gaia Institute on City Island.

A century ago, oysters were so common that street stands sold them on the half-shell.

But overharvesting, toxic waste and disease hit the mollusks hard.

Bubbins said his group was inspired by a Bronx River restoration project.

Six years ago, the Bronx River Alliance and the city Parks Department set out to help a small colony of Bronx River oysters near Soundview Park.

Like the Bronx Kill, the Bronx River had been ravaged by dumping and neglect.

In 2007 and 2008, volunteers used Long Island clamshells to build a reef for the oysters and gathered baby oysters from the water to boost the colony.

In the Bronx Kill, Mankiewicz and Friends of Brook Park will install reef-like ropes made from recycled plastic, then reseed it with baby oysters.

Friends of Brook Park chose the Bronx Kill not only because it borders Mott Haven but also because the waterway is tranquil and too small for motorboat traffic.

It would take an enormous oyster colony to rid the larger Bronx River of gunk, but a mollusk-powered Bronx Kill cleanup is doable, said Mankiewicz.

Friends of Brook Park plans to work in the Bronx Kill near Lincoln Ave., but could also plant oysters near Mill Pond Park in the Harlem River.

BY VISHAL PERSAUD

Daily News
Tuesday, June 15,2010

PDF of Daily News Article

WATER, water everywhere, and
no place to put a paddle.
That’s the gripe a Bronx
group is raising over lack of
public access to the Harlem River
waterfront at the new Mill
Pond Park in Mott Haven.
“People can’t even walk to
the water and fish and touch
it,” said Harry Bubbins, director
of Friends of Brook Park.
While most visitors to the
10-acre park can enjoy a walk
along the waterfront pathways,
or sit in a sand-decked picnic
area, mesh and steel fencing —
as well as rail tracks — separate
the public from the river’s
edge.
Groups like the Friends of
Brook Park advocate public access
to the riverfront to introduce
boating, canoeing and fishing
programs to the community.
Bubbins said the new park at
the foot of 149th St. has three
separate spots that could offer
potential public access to the
water.
The big problem is that an
active railway line owned by the
CSX Corporation runs along the
water’s edge, blocking access.
But Bronx Parks Commissioner
Hector Aponte said water
access was never a part of the
original design plan for the new
park.
“The park was designed to allow
people to get close to the
river,” he said. “The park was
not designed for river sports
such as boating, kayaking and
canoeing.”
Yet some residents feel that
access to the water would be a
good idea.
“It would be a good thing for
the community because there’s
a lot of people that like to fish
or do boat watching or sit and
enjoy the water,” said Mark
Elzey, 46, of Morrisania.
The park, which opened last
October, was a vacant industrial
site transformed by the city into
the first waterfront park along
the Harlem River as part of the
Yankee Stadium Redevelopment
Project.
The Bronx River Alliance, a
coalition dedicated to cleaning
up the Bronx River, introduced
public canoe trips along the
8-mile stretch of the river.
Similar groups, like The Urban
Divers Estuary Conservancy, a
citywide environmental and cultural
nonprofit, want access to
the Harlem River to raise
awareness about the natural resources
available in the city.
The group wants to introduce
hardworking communities in the
Bronx to activities such as
catch-and-release fishing to connect
them with the environment
and provide a respite from hectic
city life, said Ludger Balan,
the nonprofit’s executive environmental
program director.

Let’s put an end to drilling.

It’s been over a month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven people were killed in the explosion and millions of gallons of oil have been dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in what has become the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

The Gulf Coast economy is suffering, and endangered sea turtles, dolphins and other marine mammals are turning up dead on beaches.

In response to the disaster, the President announced that he is suspending Arctic offshore drilling, canceling lease sales in the western Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia, and extending the moratorium on deepwater drilling for six months.

This is an important step in preventing the next offshore oil disaster, but it’s not enough.

The only way to prevent this from happening again is by ending all offshore drilling. A clean energy future is possible, but we need your help.

Offshore drilling will NEVER be safe. Sign the petition to end offshore drilling now.

Oceana’s Response

Oceana is one of only a few organizations dedicated to a ban on offshore drilling. Click here to learn more about our response to the spill and what you can do to help and sign our petition.