REMEMBERING 9/11
In gritty, industrial Long Island City, more than 150 people crowded the side walk and street adjoining a community garden to watch the planting of a street tree dedicated to Michael E. Brennan, a firefighter lost in the World Trade Center attacks. Among the participants that day, six months after September 11th, were administrators, teachers and students from Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Secondary School for Arts & Technology. Michael Brennan was the son of their school's secretary, Eileen Walsh. "As they tried to express the sorrow and grief we all feel, the idea came forward to plant a tree and put a memorial plaque in," said Noah Kaufman, one of several people working in the area who have been slowly putting together the community garden during their lunch hours. The desire for a memorial inspired a broader effort by the school to help in the garden and join with other high schools and business people to work for outdoor space in an area completely devoid of green.
The project in Queens is but one of numerous green remembrances of 9/ll that have sprouted as if from seeds spread in the wind. In addition to the parks and groves being planned at the sites of the terrorist attacks, living memorials in parks, gardens, and streets are taking root in New York and all over the country. Trees and flowers are age-old symbols of the resilience of life. People searching for a way to cope with the pain and loss have found a sense of renewal and hope in growing things, even a single tree. There is solace to be found in the labor of gardening, as well as in the process of working together with neighbors to make the city a better place to live.
The impulse can be seen in the daffodils that have been blooming at 600 parks and other sites around the city. Ten thousand volunteers planted more than a million bulbs, donated by bulb companies and Dutch cities, in a project organized by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation with help from 583 groups. Similar motivations led residents of a block in Brooklyn to raise money to plant two trees in Prospect Park to remember a neighbor who died in the World Trade Center attacks.
To encourage these efforts, the U.S. Forest Service has established a Living Memorial Project to assist local governments and groups in planning public groves in New York City, the Pentagon area, and in southwest Pennsylvania. The Forest Service is providing technical assistance and matching grants (the deadline for grant proposals is May 21.) The agency will also compile an inventory of memorial plantings around the country and feature them on the project's web site. New York City plantings will be mapped on OASIS, an interactive web-based map of New York City open space resources.
Some of the larger New York City memorials that have already been planted or are in the works:
In December, Trees New York planted 18 street trees in lower Manhattan in honor of specific individuals who lost their lives at the World Trade Center. The urban forestry organization, which promotes the planting and maintenance of street and park trees and trains citizen pruners, also has a Living Legacy Program for those who want to sponsor the planting of a commemorative tree.
At Battery Park, where many people fled after the attack and which was used as a staging area for the recovery effort, the Battery Conservancy dedicated a 10,000-square-foot flower border as the "Garden of Remembrance" for September 11. The border runs along the waterfront near the ferry for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Students from nearby high schools who escaped through the park on September 11 returned to plant bulbs in the garden, and participated in the dedication on December 11. "We wanted many people who had a traumatic experience in the park that day to build new positive memories," said Warrie Price, the park administrator and Conservancy president. The Conservancy recently received $1 million from Verizon toward its goal of a $4 million endowment to support the planting and maintenance of year-round flower and plant displays at the garden.
The National Tree Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based group that works with local volunteer organizations to plant and maintain trees in urban and rural areas and along highways, planted a dozen ash trees in a Memorial Treeway at Calvary Cemetery in Queens, where 11 of those who died on September 11 were buried. The trust plants what it calls "champion trees," which are clones of the largest and healthiest native trees in the country.
American Forests, a 125-year-old national conservation group that focuses on environmental restoration, urban forestry and education, has teamed up with Eddie Bauer to plant at least one tree for every victim of the September 11 attacks. The group will plant saplings at sites in New York, Washington, D.C., Arlington, Virginia, and Somerset County, Pennsylvania, as well as in other communities in the United States. About half of the 3,000 saplings destined for New York City will be planted in the Hudson River Park.
GOVERNORS ISLAND APRIL SURPRISE, NOT JOKE
With Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg at his side, President Bush announced on April 1st that the U.S. government would give Governors Island back to New York city and state for educational purposes. The president's announcement has given momentum to longstanding efforts to open the historic military base to public use, but with a new twist: The plan now calls for using the island for programs of the City University of New York, freeing up space at other CUNY campuses for New York City public high schools.
There was no mention of Governor Pataki's earlier plan, which was widely supported, to create a self-supporting "grand civic space" on the island, including a convention center, museum, hotel, and public park. President Clinton declared the two historic forts on the island a National Monument in his final days in office.
Civic groups and members of Congress who have been working for years to turn Governors Island into a new public space for the city reacted positively to the idea of moving CUNY programs to the island, part of which has brick buildings, lawns, and trees that feel like a college campus already. But they didn't want the idea of public uses, including open space and ballfields, forgotten. "What about the plan we all signed on to?" said Robert Pirani, environmental director of the Regional Plan Association. He noted that many elements of the previous plan were totally compatible with CUNY, including parkland, a tourist attraction like a museum to complement the historic forts, and revenue-generating uses like a conference or special events center. "One of the things that would make it a success is to have a variety of things out there."
Representative Carolyn Maloney, who, along with Rep. Jerrold Nader, sponsored legislation to return the island to New York for public use, cautioned that there needs to be a realistic way to cover the estimated $15 to $35 million cost of maintaining the island, as well as the cost of converting the buildings to educational use. In an editorial in the Daily News, she argued for federal assistance as well as the inclusion of enough revenue-producing activities to make the island self-sufficient, in addition to the green space that the original plan included.
Financing, as well as legal and legislative issues, would have to be addressed before the plan could go through. But even before the details are worked out, the National Monument area could be opened for visitors, according to Robert Pirani. "The Parks Service could be running tours this summer," he said, noting that number of people going to Ground Zero had increased visitation to the other historic attractions in New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
On June 2, a flotilla of a thousand boats will converge near the island to advance the cause of opening the island to the public.
BEETLE BUSTERS
Anyone who detects evidence of the Asian long-horned beetle is urged to call the beetle hotline, 1-877-STOPALB, operated by the nonprofit group Trees New York. The group immediately forwards the information to the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and a forester will come to check out the sighting. Barbara Eber-Schmid, the executive director of Trees New York, says that people shouldn't be reluctant to report a sighting because they don't want their tree taken down. The tree will die anyway, and there is government funding to replace the trees cut down. Leaving an infested tree will allow the beetle to spread.
Since the Asian long-horned beetle was first discovered in Greenpoint in 1996, it has become a serious threat to the city's five million park, street, and backyard trees. The tree-killing insect chews holes into the bark of trees to lay its eggs, which hatch into white, worm-like larvae. The larvae burrow into the tree to live and feed during the colder months, emerging as adults in the spring to mate and start the process all over again. The only way to stop the beetle from spreading is to cut down and destroy every infested tree.
The beetle is about one to one-and-a-half inches long, with a shiny black body, white spots and very long, black-and-white striped antennae. Signs of the beetle are dime or pencil-sized holes, usually in the upper trunk or branches, and piles of frass -- sawdust and insect waste -- where branches meet the trunk or at the base of the tree.
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For almost three decades, Ruth Anderberg was a leader in the struggle to clean up and restore the Bronx River, the city's only true free flowing river. Inspired by Earth Day and variously aided by Boy Scout troops, the National Guard Auxiliary, and the Bronx Chief of Police, Anderberg oversaw efforts that removed refrigerators and washing machines, planted trees and educated local children about the river.
Then, Anderberg retired. Last year, in her place, the Bronx River Alliance was created to lead the 60 corporate, governmental and community groups involved with the river's restoration. The river these groups focus on runs for roughly twenty miles, from a spring-fed marsh near Valhalla, New York through pristine parkland in Westchester before it meets up with the East River near Hunts Point.
Alexie Torres-Fleming, the chairperson for the Bronx River Alliance, notes how the river and the Bronx communities along its banks have been neglected, if not abused, for years, and cites as an example a cement plant on the riverĂŞs western shore, that is representative of what happens when a community lacks political heft.
The hulking, abandoned plant is the focus of a campaign by the Youth Ministry for Peace and Justice, an organization that Torres-Fleming also directs. It calls for demolition of the cement plant, expansion of nearby Starlight Park and the construction of a bike and walking path that will literally and figuratively bridge three communities divided by the crisscrossing highways. Torres-Fleming sees the "blazed" but not yet officially opened trail between these communities as a connection to the water, a recreational resource and a link among people with shared aspirations and similar problems. She wants the shared enterprise of trail and park building to simultaneously empower the community's youth by giving them a stake and a rallying point.
And the river seems to be doing just that. Hernan Melara, 19, has volunteered for four years for the Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, knocking on doors, passing out leaflets, typing notes and pushing bureaucrats to do more, sooner for the river that runs through his community.
His waterfront involvement began when he traveled to the Westchester section of the Bronx River where he saw a "clean river with turtles and ducks". "Why can't we have this?" he asked himself. Soon thereafter, he was knocking on neighbor's doors. The response from some older citizens was "great idea, I used to swim or fish there". From younger residents, the response was all too often "There is a river there?"
Melara wanted to experience the river. He joined a canoe trip that led him down the river from 219th Street to its confluence with the East River. He describes a journey through forests, the Bronx Botanical Garden, the buffalo park in the Bronx Zoo, portaging around dams and waterfalls, passing under city streets and alongside derelict industry before reaching the waves, tides and sandbars that are nature's markers between natural places. "It was a great journey and we got something accomplished. I learned never to limit myself".
Ruth Anderberg should be very pleased.
Peter B. Fleischer, currently writing a book on the New York City waterfront, was formerly a transportation and environment policy advisor to New York City Mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani.
New York City's waterways and waterfronts have received special attention from both sides of City Hall this year, with the new mayor highlighting waterfront revitalization in his State of the City address, and the new City Council creating a Waterfronts Committee chaired by Brooklyn Councilmember David Yassky.
Yassky, speaking from the steps of City Hall, recently identified the city's "worst waterfront wastes" - areas along the waterfront that have great potential but are being neglected -- including the underused Staten Island Home Port, the mouth of the Flushing River in Queens, The Bronx's access-starved South East Coast and the giant salt pile on the Harlem River in Manhattan.". He called on the Bloomberg administration to review all city-owned, waterfront parcels, of which there are almost 200.
"You can not stop investing in the future because this year's budget is tight," Yassky said.
Yassky favors the creation of a comprehensive citywide waterfront plan. He praised the scores of volunteer organizations throughout the city that work to provide waterfront access for their communities. He stressed that he seeks "projects that bring people to the water, get them to use it, show them what is at stake and thereby build ongoing support for a waterfront agenda". His waterfront priorities include street-end parks, housing, open space, and ferries.
After Yassky's comments, Carter Craft, program director for the advocacy group, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, noted that more than a dozen, city and state agencies hold jurisdiction over the waterfront, and called for improved coordination among the public agencies.
Because of the budget crunch, ending forty years of coastal decay will require plans that are inexpensive or that profoundly catch the public imagination. State legislative support, bureaucratic coordination and community solidarity will also be necessary.
To advance a comprehensive waterfront program, new locations will need to be found for existing municipal uses. Developing contaminated land at waterfront sites requires legislation. Ferry route expansion needs public subsidy or private capital. The creative imagination of volunteer organizations and their inexpensive labor will need to be tapped. New York's waterbound citizens will need to relearn their proximity to the sea and perhaps be newly taught its history. The list of what is needed is lengthy.
Waterfront resurgence will not occur overnight or by fiat. The three hundred-year development of New York harbor was incremental, entrepreneurial, and organic -- diverse harbor uses arose for the most part from local needs, as well as acts of God.
Today's ongoing efforts by the city's people to reclaim the waters are rooted in pioneering acts. From the Bronx River Alliance's twenty year struggle to restore its namesake river to the River Project's marine research in Tribeca, from the power boat fleets of Jamaica Bay seeking to extend maritime tradition to Floating the Apple's building and launching historic vessels, New Yorkers have already begun to reclaim their maritime heritage.
We need an inventory of what is already being done on the waterfront alongside the list of what has not been done, and both the council and the mayor should aim to assist these efforts. Newer, bigger plans should be harmonious with the numerous, popular, pioneering efforts that abound on city shores. The coast is large and diverse enough for nature, recreation, transportation and economic activity. A renaissance for both harbor tunnels and harbor herons is possible.
Peter B. Fleischer, currently writing a book on the New York City waterfront, was formerly a transportation and environment policy advisor to New York City Mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani.