At the Lower East Side Ecology Center’s Fifth Annual WinterParty at the Fireboat House in East River Park on Feb. 15, former Upper West Side Councilmember Stanley Michels, center, was recognized as a special honoree. Manhattan Borough Parks Commissioner Bill Castro, left, helped do the honors along with Christine Datz-Romero of the Ecology Center, right. Michels was chairperson of the City Council’s Committee on the Environment from 1992 to 2002 and an advocate for waste prevention and recycling. Castro also gave awards to community groups who helped out with the department’s MulchFest 2004, in which 127,000 Christmas trees were chipped citywide in neighborhood parks, 16,000 in Manhattan alone. Among those honored were the Union Sq. Community Coalition as well as the L.E.S. Ecology Center, the latter which sponsored three chipping sites in Lower Manhattan: Tompkins Sq., Washington Sq. and Union Sq.
