By Julie Shapiro
Plans for a new DeLury Square park garnered broad support at a Southbridge Towers tenant meeting last week, though some people remained concerned about the park’s security.
“It’s a great gift to Southbridge,” resident Edith Amster said after the presentation. “I believe the community will greatly benefit from a beautiful park.”
The Parks Department hopes to build the park at Fulton and Gold Sts. after the city transforms that corner into a traditional right-angle intersection. To complete the 10,000-square-foot park, the city would need to buy a parcel of land owned by Southbridge Towers. Southbridge residents will soon vote on the city’s offer of just over $5.5 million for the land.
If Southbridge tenants approve the transaction, the city hopes to start construction this fall and open the park in fall 2009.
Several residents were concerned that teens from high schools including nearby Murry Bergtraum, who frequent the Fulton St. Burger King, will make the park a hangout.
Bonnie, a resident of Building 2, told her fellow tenants that she wants to move the students farther from the building, not closer.
“I have no problem with the park, but every single day there are issues [with the students],” she said.
Thomas Moran, the First Precinct’s community affairs officer, replied that police officers are regularly posted near the Burger King, and he added that the scooter task force is giving special attention to the area.
Moran encouraged the residents to support the park.
“I don’t see the problems that are happening at Burger King happening in the park,” Moran said. “It doesn’t look like [the students] will have a space to sit and congregate.”
Greg Cooper, a Southbridge resident, said after the meeting that he felt the security issues had been addressed. The park “only makes Southbridge a better place,” Cooper said. “I think we’re lucky.”
DeLury Square will be part of a chain of parks along the redeveloped Fulton St., moving down toward the East River to Pearl St. Playground and Titanic Park, said Lawrence Mauro, the Parks Dept.’s project manager for Lower Manhattan. The corner of Gold and Fulton Sts. was once a forest, and the goal of landscape architect Alexander Hart’s design is to bring the forest back to Lower Manhattan.
The idyllic renderings show a diagonal path traversing a green swatch, curving among tall trees and boulders inspired by Manhattan’s skyline. A fountain in the center of the park will keep water flowing across stones and into a pond. Picnickers can spread out on a sunny lawn, encircled by flowers and fragrant shrubs.
“It will be a calm and quiet passage,” Mauro said. When he spoke with residents about what they wanted, “the word ‘refuge’ came up again and again.”
City Councilmember Alan Gerson called the park a wonderful opportunity, but said “the devil remains in the details,” a harbinger of the detailed questions that followed the Parks Department’s presentation. He may have been referring to a long-running dispute in the Village over the redesign of Washington Square Park.
Residents asked about everything from traffic lights and security cameras to dog walkers and street vendors, but the majority seemed to support the plan.
“This looks like paradise compared to what we have already,” said one resident, whose remarks were met with applause.
Several residents, however, were concerned that the proposed 4-foot steel fence would be too short to protect the park.
Mauro replied that an agile young person could scale even a 7-foot fence without much trouble, and that the fence is more a property marker than a safeguard. Besides, with a taller fence, “you’ll feel like you’re sitting in a cage,” he said.
To discourage people from sleeping on the park benches, the benches will be shorter than usual, with arm rests in the middle, Mauro said. As additional security, the Parks Enforcement Patrol promised to include the park on its rounds.
“We want to make this work,” said Edwin Falcon, a PEP sergeant.
One tenant asked about the sinkhole on Southbridge property, which the city would repair if the park plan goes forward. The soil used to fill that area 30 years ago is settling, Mauro said, which is putting stress on sewage and drainage lines. Parks will stretch a geotextile fabric across the hole to support the soil.
If the tenants do not agree to sell the land to the city, Southbridge will have to bear the cost of the multi-million-dollar repair, said Wally Dimson, president of the Southbridge Towers board.
“I’m confident people will support it,” he said of the sale.
One resident asked what would happen to the square parcel if Southbridge decides not to sell its part of it. Mauro replied that the Parks Department’s contribution in that case would be “extremely limited.”
“You’d see pavement, benches,” Mauro said, and then he paused. “Maybe a tree.”
As the audience broke into laughter, one tenant turned to another and said, “A tree grows in DeLury.”
Julie@DowntownExpress.com
