New York City shuts down home-brewed community park

[marmar]

from Grist:



[font size="1"]Photo by Regina Formisano/Patch.[/font]


The lot at Woodhull and Columbia Streets had sat vacant for 35 years. Around the corner, in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens, the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel pours into the Gowanus Expressway. The lot was a mess, a trash bin for the remnants of drug use and a home for rats.

Lou Formisano decided to do something about it: He spent his own money to clean up the place, spread it with sod, and install patio furniture and a sprinkler, Patch reports.

Two weeks later, the city kicked him out. The lot belongs New York’s Housing Preservation & Development Department (HPD), and while the government doesn’t plan on doing anything with the lot any time soon, it doesn’t want Formisano messing with it either. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/list/new-york-city-shuts-down-home-brewed-community-park/

[ljm2002]

1. This is one reason why it's easy to hate "the government"...

...it seems like just another excuse to squash the energy and commitment of the people when they want to do something positive about their surroundings.

The city should have sat up and taken notice and thanked them for their efforts and committed to supporting them. If they wanted to leave in a caveat that someday they might have to kick them out, if the city actually decided to do something else with the property, sure, I think that's okay. But just summarily kicking them out after they have removed a community blight? Nothing but bad.

[limpyhobbler]

3. They wouldn't want to encourage this sort of behavior. Might give people the wrong idea.

Even though I totally agree with you.

[Gman]

2. Nothing is allowed anywhere in the country right now

That might give Occupy a foothold.

[neeksgeek]

4. When I was a kid, New York City was this semi-mythical place where amazing things happened.

It no longer sounds like such a great place.

But I bet it's really safe.