The preliminary plan for a restaurant in Union Square Park
(2005)
Why does the mayor want a restaurant in Union Square Park?
How are playground improvements paid for in other city parks?
Why are parents and the community opposed to the plan?
Is there evidence of a need for a restaurant in the park?
What is the position of the Department of Parks and Community
Board 5 on the needs of our children?
What is the position of the Department of Parks and Community
Board 5 on the City/Partnership's preliminary Plan?
Is there widespread community support for the City/Partnership's
plan?
What are the concerns about the plan the playground and
pavilion design?
Is the bid’s plan, which has not yet been shown, an improvement
for the children and the public?
Is there an alternate vision for the renovation of the
north end of the park?
Q. Why does the mayor want a restaurant in Union Square
Park?
A. A restaurant in the park would make money for the city's general fund.
The money will not even go into the Parks' Department budget. The City/Union
Square Partnership's preliminary plan to renovate the north end of the
park is designed primarily to accommodate a restaurant not to maximize
children's play space. The mayor would give away scarce play and park
space by trading them under a long-term lease, for a restaurant. As the
mayor left the press conference at which he promoted the plan for a restaurant,
he was asked by a parent, "What about the kids?" He shrugged
and said, "How do you expect us to pay for the parks?"
Q. How are playground improvements paid for in other
city parks?
A. Under the City Charter, the city is responsible for the maintenance,
improvement and security of city parks. Our taxes are supposed to pay
for such public services. Throughout the city, playground improvements
are made in the parks. Why is Union Square Park expected to give up its
scarce park land for a restaurant to pay for needed improvements?
Q. Why are parents and the community opposed to the
plan?
A. The keystone to the City/Partnership's complicated and expensive plan
is the establishment of a costly, private, restaurant in the park. The
restaurant and seasonal terrace would take away several thousand square
feet of desperately needed potential play space for our children and prohibit
free public access to the pavilion and terrace.
Q. Is there evidence of a need for a restaurant in
the park?
A. No. There is a surfeit of food available in the area surrounding the
park: one-hundred and fifty restaurants, cafes, bars, pizza parlors, delicatessens
and food from the green market.
Q. What is the position of the Department Parks and
Community Board 5 on the needs of our children?
A. The city's Department of Parks and Recreation's credo is: "Parks
should be, foremost, for the children." The department's commissioner
says, "The children are really the primary clients of the Parks Department."
District Community Board 5 indicated in its Statement of Need Fiscal Year
2005: "There is a need for additional active children's play space
in CB5; specifically in Union Square Park."
Q. What is the position of the Department of Parks
and Community Board 5 on the City/Partnership's preliminary plan?
A. The Department of Parks is promoting the City/Partnership's plan to
take away potential children's play space in favor of a revenue producing
restaurant. So much for children first! Community Board 5 passed an initial
resolution in support of the preliminary concept design. So much for ignoring
children's needs! However, additional public hearings will be held on
the issues.
Q. Is there wide spread community support for theCity/Partnership's
preliminary plan?
A. No. As the public becomes informed about the plan, opposition is growing.
Community organization leaders, activists and concerned citizens have
voiced their outrage at the plan. They complain about the lack of information
and community input to the plan. Not one of them had even heard of the
plan. To date, letters of support for our campaign have come from members
of the U.S. Congress, NY State senators and assembly members, NY City
Council members, neighboring block associations, citywide organizations,
political clubs and over 850 petitions have been signed by parents and
members of the public.
Q. What are the concerns about the plan's playground
and pavilion design?
A. The plan would have patrons cross a bridge to enter the restaurant.
Only people who can pay for a costly meal would be allowed to enter the
renovated pavilion. Under the bridge, "expanded" playground
space would occupy only small sections of the sunken terrace which narrows
the play space into a trench and a tunnel through which the children would
have to travel to move between adjacent play areas. The resulting poor
sightlines would prevent parents from watching-out for their children's
safety as they move from the trench and through the tunnel. Parent's fear
that the design provides a place for undesirables to hang-out during the
daytime, and would encourage night-time residents. Moreover, any use of
the terrace as a café would take away the possibility of capturing
the largest additional children's play space in the park. Without an exclusive
terrace café, parents could watch-out for their children in the
adjoining playgrounds.
Q. Is the revised plan, which has not yet been shown
to the public, an improvement for the children and the public?
A. No. Nothing has significantly changed in the concept of the revised
plan. Elements of the plan would merely be moved around. The restaurant/terrace,
still the plan's keystone, would simply be moved closer to each other.
There still would not be free public access to the pavilion. More parkland
from the east side of the park would be taken for additional play space,
making more room for the terrace café!. The City/Partnership has
not, yet, offered an alternative concept for the renovation-one without
a private restaurant.
Q. Is there an alternate vision for the renovation
of the north end of the park?
A. Yes. It is possible to design a marvelous place for our children to
play and for a pavilion with a myriad of year-round public uses. Michael
Van Valkenburgh's outstanding landscape architectural firm, commissioned
by the Partnership to develop the plan, has surely been handicapped by
the City/Partnership's primary requirement for a restaurant/terrace in
the park. The design does not contribute to the public good nor is it
good for our children.
Unfettered, the firm's talented staff could seize this opportunity to
design a model for the use of public space. Park's Commissioner, Benepe
stated, recently. "There are no end of ideas for a children's playground."
If maximum potential play space were used, children could run and play
freely and disabled youngsters could finally have public space and proper
equipment for their special needs. The pavilion could be renovated at
a modest cost to serve as a staging area for concerts and public rallies,
or as a breezeway where people who work in the area could relax and eat
their lunch, or as a performance space for children and artists, or for
programs and activities sponsored by community organizations. Good public
policy would dictate such choices over the ones proposed thus far.
Help us preseve this designated National Historic Landmark
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Parks Advocates • 222 East 93rd street • Suite 40H • NY,
NY 10128 • Tel 212-459-4000
www.saveunionsquare.org