Open Thread Wednesday 5/13/09

By on May 13, 2009 12:30 am in Brooklyn Heights
Flickr photo by nycurbandecay

Flickr photo by nycurbandecay

What’s on your mind.  Comment away!

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  • guest

    To Biff and his fellow complainers regarding the soccer players:
    First, I must admit my bias: I play soccer regularly at the park on Saturday mornings and have been doing so year-round at the same time, on the same day, since very shortly after the turf was installed over two years ago.
    I’d like to clear up a few misconceptions that seem to have pervaded this discussion before I get to my substantive points. The group of people (guys and ladies) who play soccer on Saturday mornings are made up of members of the community just as you are. The players are residents of the heights, freinds of residents, co-workers, relatives, etc. It isn’t just a city-wide collection of soccer playing meanies. Many players are parents of small children themselves. The game is 100% pick-up and anyone who roams by is always welcome to join. A very nice gentleman brings different color jerseys each week just so that we can tell the teams (which are picked that very morning) apart.
    That being said, I have to respectully disagree with the notion that the concerns of a young child are paramount to anyone else’s. Nobody ever wants to see a child get hurt. That is clear. So is it the responsibility of a person already engaged in a game of soccer to stop playing as soon as a child is brought into the vicinity of the field, or is it the responsibility of a parent not to bring their child so close to the field that they may be in danger? A public park by its very nature is open to everyone and is meant for everyone’s enjoyment. However, I reject the notion that it must be enjoyed by all people at all times. If the field is enjoyed by older people (and I am sadly among this crowd) one morning, can it not be enjoyed by younger people at all other hours of the weekend? An older person who wants to play soccer and a child who wants to run around and do kid things (and who doesn’t love kid things!) by the laws of nature can not occupy the same space at the same moment. Personally, I do not see the inequity in this arrangement.
    Lastly, please don’t ruin the only reason why my significant other hasn’t dragged me to the gym kicking and screaming. Soccer is my one last excuse for excercise!

  • AEB

    guest, I believe the aim is to level the playing field, so to speak.

    The point is that no single group should monopolize a park area and then “hold” it simply because of numbers, or because its activity poses a threat to other park-goers, thus requiring them to scatter.

    The best solution, it seems to me, would be to set up a schedule so that all may enjoy the spot in question equally.

  • The Where

    AEB, I usually agree with you.. but there you go again… you liberals with your government plans for everything!

    /sarcasm

  • AEB

    Yeah, TW, egalitarianism’s a bitch…..

  • guest

    AEB,
    How do you propose altering the years-old schedule which the soccer players have maintained? On a side note to all, what has now triggered such an immediate reaction to a long-standing use of the field?
    On the point of monopolization – isn’t this what occurs when one sits on a park bench? You are monopolizing that spot on the bench for your personal enjoyment to the exclusion of others. Now what if 50 people all decided to occupy all of the benches along one row (maybe the ones in the shade on a very hot day)? Would this group monopolization of desireable bench space offend your sense of egalitarianism?

  • AEB

    Guest, what you’re suggesting is that an unalterable precedent has been set by the guys who are using what is after all a public space that should be available to all.

    The issue is the rights of all, not just of the few. If this sounds highfalutin–well, the principle is basic.

    I didn’t suggest that the soccer guys be banished; I merely said that some equitable arrangement should be established by which EVERYBODY has a chance to use the field in question.

    Frankly, I don’t see why that’s such a challenging notion.

    And I’d feel the same if the same fifty people insisted on using up all park benches in a given area week after week, and kept others from using them by creating a potentially injurious situation.

  • guest

    I aplogize if my remarks connoted a sense of inflexibility in the schedule of the soccer players. My intention was to ask what schedule you would prefer the soccer players change to for them to play soccer on the field.

  • Biff Champion

    guest, I couldn’t agree with you less.

    “So is it the responsibility of a person already engaged in a game of soccer to stop playing as soon as a child is brought into the vicinity of the field, or is it the responsibility of a parent not to bring their child so close to the field that they may be in danger? A public park by its very nature is open to everyone and is meant for everyone’s enjoyment.”

    No, but it is the responsibility to not use almost the ENTIRE field when they play. And you really think if I’m there with two young ones in the middle of the field that the players won’t set up around us and ask us to move??

    I think you just killed your own argument that suggesting a public park is “for everyone”. Exactly. That means if someone wants to use a tiny patch of the turf with their kids while the soccer players are using it all, we should be able to. Why do you think they have permits for playing fields, like at the Parade Grounds? It’s a public park, no? So organized leagues can get approval to use the fields at designated times. If you don’t have a permit for Cadman Plaza, you have no right to dominate the space. Sorry.

  • Biff Champion

    “My intention was to ask what schedule you would prefer the soccer players change to for them to play soccer on the field.”

    You are totally missing the point. It’s not the schedule…it’s the fact you take up almost the ENTIRE turf. Hello? Anybody home?

  • AEB

    Guest, no apology needed!

    My answer is–I don’t know. That is, I don’t know what rules if any exist to ensure equitable use of park space.

    If there is sufficient objection to the players using the field week after week, someone with the proper authority would have to make a determination on what “fair use” is.

    An analogy of my own: at my gym there are three benches used for weight pressing. If all three of these are in use, and that use threatens to become protracted (as sometimes happens), I am allowed by custom and official gym “etiquette” to request of any of the users that I be allowed to work-in–to share a bench’s use.

    The operative principle/word here is “sharing.”

  • Jazz

    Does anyone care that plastic grass is poison?

  • AEB

    “A permit”–there you go, Biff….

  • Biff Champion

    Thanks AEB. At least with a permit we would all know when to not bother going. For those interested, here is a link to ask the Parks Department what can be done so everyone can enjoy use of the turf

    http://nyc.gov/html/mail/html/maildpr.html

  • nabeguy

    guest, maybe you should go to the gym instead…that park bench argument leads me to believe you may have taken one header too many. If a single person was to come along and somehow spread themselves out over an entire bench, that would be considered monopolization. A group of soccer players who commandeer the field for their sole enjoyment to the exclusion of others is not a monopoly, it’s a dictatorship.

  • guest

    AEB, your gym analogy is precicely what I am trying to get at. When you are presented with something which can only really be used by one person (or group in this case) at a time in the way in which they want to use it, you take turns. No two people can do bench presses at the same time on the weight bench, so you alternate turns. Taking turns is a form of sharing, as you noted.
    As I see it, soccer players using the field for a few hours on Saturday mornings and yeilding the field back to whomever for the rest of the weekend is exactly that – taking turns – sharing.

  • heightsdiho

    Hmmm – veering off the soccer argument and back to Josh regarding the peregrin falcons…. Yes, I have seen them several times in the heights over the years. In the backyard areas in the North Heights as well as on the Brooklyn Bridge. Have seen other raptors in the Heights too – red tails, kestrals and a coopers hawk!

  • cv

    I find it frightening even to be on the walkways with my child, as the balls are buzzing everywhere. In other parks, there are mandates for when it is okay for such activities. We love Cadman Plaza and would like to see it shared among the community — not just for kids/families — also for grownup sports players. But “shared” and not dangerous is the operative word. Biff, thanks for taking the trouble to post the link; I will follow up. (FYI, I was recently at a community meeting about another subject, and members of the audience brought up this very problem — i.e. the danger of the soccer balls and the loss of the park for children during many hours/days of the week — with the politicians at that meeting. So it is being felt by many as a problem, not just a few of us.)

  • josh

    Thanks heightsdiho, i need to keep my head up more. of course that will open me up to being hit by a soccer ball ;)

    guest, i think the issue is a little larger than your saturday morning game, but what the answer is i don’t know. maybe putting some sort of dividers up so that the field can’t be dominated by one group…maybe defining what and when certain activities are allowed…

  • epc

    Found this great shot of the North Heights circa 1905-1909: http://www.shorpy.com/node/3893 appears to be from the Stanhope, looking north towards the three bridges (Manhattan Bridge under construction). Includes a pre-Leverich towers Willow Street at Clark.

  • DAB

    I can think of a large number of places to sit outside in the area, but no other places to play footie.

    Soccer is the world’s game, and has been played without intereference from yuppie whingeing everywhere except Brooklyn Heights, apparently. Apart from the entirely reasonable suggestion that people should be able to play pick-up matches on a place that has enough room for them, it’s also nice to see one part of the borough that isn’t given over entirely to stroller people.

    Guest wins.

  • David on Middagh

    DAB, soccer may be the world’s game, but Brooklyn’s game is basketball–invented expressly so that a team sport could be played in a small space. All you need is a hoop on a pole, and a few yards of pavement. Green fields are too rare in the city to let baseball/football/soccer/ultimate frisbee take over for hours at a time without the express consent of the community (or the permit-issuing powers that be).

  • GHB

    “Brooklyn’s game is basketball… All you need is a hoop on a pole, and a few yards of pavement.”

    It also helps to have a ball…

  • David on Middagh

    …or an imagination. ;)

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