Talk Bronx New York

Allerton Ballfield in the Bronx renovated before All-Star Game

Cal Ripken Jr. works with Outsiders’ Edison Montalvo on his swing as Hall of Famer helps over revamped Allerton Ballfields with brother Billy and Bernie Williams

Emmanuel Fabre is a middle infielder from the Bronx, a wiry, 5-7, 140-pound kid who steals bases and hits balls in gaps, and is a key player for a fine youth baseball team called the Outsiders.

He is walking across the freshly renovated infield of the Allerton Ballfield in the Bronx, eyes wide with enthusiasm. The bumps and craters that made every ground ball an adventure have given way to evenly graded clay - the very same dirt used at that field a few miles away, Yankee Stadium. The new pitcher’s mound is pristine, the dugout benches upgraded and painted, the massive poison ivy patch climbing up the first-base fence a withering brown memory.

There may be a gala, and emotionally loaded All-Star Game, being played at the Stadium on Tuesday, but if you ask the Outsiders and the other ballplayers from the neighborhood, this $100,000 slice of urban renewal - courtesy of a public-private partnership between the city parks department and Nike’s Let Me Play initiative - is no small event, either.

“No more bad hops,” Fabre says. “They fixed the field totally.”

John Finck is the president of the Outsiders Baseball Association.

“The infield used to be a lunar landscape,” Finck says. “Now look at it.”

The new field - just off of Webster Ave. by 204th St. - was officially dedicated Saturday, after a whirlwind construction process that began on July 1 and was completed three days ago. Who says things can’t get done quickly in New York City? Of course, it doesn’t hurt when you have Nike capital and clout pushing for completion by All-Star weekend, or to have the services of Eve Burton - she’s VP and general counsel for the Hearst Corp., and John Finck’s spouse - navigating the labyrinth of city bureaucracy.

Bob Buono, whose company, Tri-State Athletic Fields and Services, did the contracting, says that it was one of the worst fields he has ever seen, not a surprise when you consider that the Allerton Ballfields, like most city parks, never get a rest, whether from soccer, baseball or softball.

Still, they got it done, and Nike was happy.

“When you promote sports and physical fitness, you make kids better and you make the world better,” says Nike spokesman Dejuan Wilkins. “That’s the philosophy behind Let Me Play.”

The ceremony Saturday featured Parks commissioner Adrian Benape, Bernie Williams, Cal Ripken Jr. and his brother Billy, and some 150 kids from various baseball clubs, including 40 Outsiders - almost entirely Latino kids from the Bronx between the ages of 16 and 18 who play in the competitive Westchester Baseball Association.

After the talking was done, the Ripken brothers and Williams ran the kids through a clinic. The kids got to work on their swings in prop-up nets, field grounders and shag flies.

“Every swing helps,” center fielder Eury Garcia of the Outsuders said. “Cal Ripken is helping us with bat speed, giving us tips - stay back, no lunging.”

Outsiders such as Emmanuel Fabre reveled in the care that went into the field. Edison Montalvo, the team’s star right fielder and cleanup hitter, imagined himself hitting his ropes and making his throws from right in a big-league field one day.

For now, the Outsiders play their home games at Roberto Clemente State Park. After the way the organization got the new field in, it has been assured of getting priority treatment when the Parks Dept. hands out permits next spring. There is an acute shortage of ballfields in the Bronx, and an even more acute shortage of good fields.

The shortage just got a little better, and you could tell just by seeing Emmanuel Fabre’s face.

“Compared to the way it used to be,” says Tony Reyes, the 33-year-old coach of the Outsiders, “this is like Yankee Stadium now.”

SOURCE

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

BRONX BOYS OF SUMMER 

The borough’s parks are all being renovated at once, so local teams are sharing crowded turf.

Construction equipment behind them and other teams all around, members of the Love Gospel Assembly Little League found themselves betwixt and between at one recent practice

A view of the Croton Water Filtration Plant under construction, looking northwest from the roof of Montefiore Medical Center.

A stream of cash pouring into the Parks Department budget has created a rehabilitation bonanza at Bronx parks, but the mostly welcome windfall is also displacing community sports teams and visitors to parks across the borough.

As an incentive for Bronx officials to agree to the construction of the nearly $3 billion Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park by the New York City Department of Environmental Preservation, the agency agreed to give the Parks Department $220 million to $260 million for rehabilitation projects at 63 parks around the borough.

The deal had one major provision: The money had to be spent by 2009. Officials in the borough aren’t completely sure why that deadline exists, but the result is a rush to spend. As the weather warmed up and both children’s and adults’ baseball teams hit the diamonds, they faced a flurry of rehabbing that’s made it hard to play.

Although park renovation sounds like a great thing to many, critics also fault the undertaking for including too little community input, benefiting disadvantaged neighborhoods like Hunts Point, Soundview and Highbridge less than other areas, and even possibly contravening DEP’s own charter.

“It’s inconveniencing a lot of people with the construction they’re doing,” said Anthony Robles, president of the Bronx Panthers youth football team. The Panthers were booted from the Williamsbridge Oval Park, in nearby Norwood, due to a construction project. Robles said he learned of the Oval project “right when they were coming in with the equipment and closing off the fields.”

Having to share their field, members of the Love Gospel Assembly Little League were forced to move due to several rain puddles at home plate. Coach Rory Gilbert said, “We have to coexist – but I have permits for this field.” Referring to two other large groups, including the young football players currently using the field, Gilbert added, “But I’m getting ready to start batting and if they have a problem with that, I really can’t do anything.”

Obtaining a field requires that an applicant fill out a form and pay an $8 per hour fee, with a two hour use minimum, but one Parks Department staffer explained: “The big problem is if we have the availability.”

When completed, Harris Park – where fences went up in April and several teams are now sharing one field – will have four new ball fields, a multipurpose field as well as a new track, playground and an exercise equipment room with showers.

Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

This Article Was Submitted By a TalkBX Reader.

If You Would Like an Article Posted on TalkBX You Can Send The Article To

TalkBox AT TalkBX.Com or VIA Our Contact Page

Who Says: We should have known this was coming. Just wait until the start tearing down the old stadium and find that the land is contaminated from an oil leak from the stadiums oil tanks..

Time and Cost Rise for Yankee Stadium Parks

 Anthony Santiago, left, and his twin brother, Christopher, playing in a temporary park at Jerome Avenue and East 161st Street.

 Cost estimates for eight small parks around the new Yankee Stadium have almost doubled.

The cost of replacing two popular parks where the new Yankee Stadium is being built has nearly doubled. At the same time, several of the eight new parks, which were supposed to be completed before the new stadium opens next spring, have been delayed by as much as two years, according to city documents.

The price of the new small parks — which are to replace tennis and basketball courts, a running track and baseball and soccer fields eliminated to make way for the new stadium — is now projected to be $174 million, almost one-seventh the cost of the $1.3 billion stadium itself. The original estimate had been $95.5 million. The increase comes amid skyrocketing costs for construction projects, both public and private, around the city.

The stadium is being financed by the Yankees with city subsidies, while the eight new parks for the South Bronx, which range in size from 0.24 acre to 8.9 acres, are being paid for by the city.

None of the replacement parks have been completed, and construction on several has not yet started; however, the parks department has built a temporary replacement park on a parking lot in the area, opened a ball field this spring at a school almost a mile to the east, and is building a sports field at a recreation center about a mile to the north.

The city was required to build the new parks after it selected the 28.4-acre Macombs Dam Park and a portion of the 18.5-acre John Mullaly Park as the site of the new stadium in 2005. State and federal law dictated that a similar amount of parkland nearby of equal or greater fair market value be built to replace the parks that would be lost.

Some residents have been critical of the trade-off. While Macombs Dam and Mullaly Parks were almost contiguous stretches of grass and trees amid the concrete topography of the South Bronx, the replacement parks are small parcels scattered around the area. The sites include sports fields atop a planned stadium parking garage and a park along the Harlem River, which is on the opposite side of the Major Deegan Expressway.

Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

New Bronx Ball Field Opens

The City Parks Department unveiled a new ball field in Melrose, Bronx on Friday, but community members claim it does not replace parkland used to build the new Yankee Stadium.

The ball field is part of an effort to create more green space across the borough.

The new field is made of Astroturf and is open to the public when school is not in session.

Previously, the park in the area was only for school use and had blacktop.

However, some community members say the field does little to make up for the loss of parkland used to build the new Yankee Stadium over a mile away.

“The city keeps saying that we are getting so much more park then they took away. Which is certainly not true because over 12 of those acres that are included in this total were already parkland - either mapped parkland or in this case, a school yard,” said Highbridge resident Joyce Hogi.

“We’re not counting it as new this is not part of a replacement. This is above and beyond. The replacement is happening near Yankee Stadium. This is just a bonus,” said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe.

Once the new stadium is completed, three new ball fields will be built on the site of the current Yankee Stadium.

SOURCE: NY1.com Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

Community Calls On City To Quickly Replace Parkland Taken By Yanks Stadium

November 15, 2007

As the Yankees move full speed ahead with construction of their new stadium, community leaders say they want the city to build parkland just as quickly to replace what was taken to make way for the ball field. NY1’s Dean Meminger has been following the stadium story and filed this report.

The Parks Department broke ground Thursday on some of the parkland that is supposed to replace Macombs Dam Park, which was destroyed to make way for the Yankees new stadium.

“Bit by bit we are keeping the promises of building the replacement parks,? said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. ?Also, this is well ahead of schedule compared to the original plans.”

Three million dollars will be spent to put in a synthetic field for baseball and soccer, along with a few other pieces of playground equipment. This new development is happening behind the West Bronx Recreation Center on Jessup Avenue.

But not everyone thinks this new park is actually a good replacement for the parkland taken by the Yankees.

“It is very far, and it is not centrally located like Macombs Dam was,” said City Councilwoman Helen Foster.

The Jessup Avenue parkland is about a mile a way from the old Macombs Dam track and field.

Park advocates say this new field is not really new. They say kids have played here for decades.

“We are obviously happy that this park is being redone, but this has been used for parkland for many years,? said Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates. ?It is disgraceful the city is trying to pass it over as replacement parkland.”

The Parks Commissioner says he is working hard to create as much parkland as possible to replace the 25 acres lost to the new stadium.

“We are going to building three baseball fields adjacent to Yankees Stadium and a soccer field adjacent to the stadium, a baseball field here and a baseball field at P.S. 29,? said Benepe. ?So, in fact, we are getting more fields than we originally had as a part of the project.”

However, residents will have to deal with fewer parks for now. Last week, the Yanks took over the softball field, basketball and paddleball courts on the side of the old stadium to make room for an underground parking garage. A new park will be built on top of it.

Community leaders say they hope the new parks are completed before the new stadium opens in the spring of 2009.

- Dean Meminger

Source: NY1 / Bronx

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post