Showing posts with label parks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parks. Show all posts

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Former Parks Chief Opposes NYU Expansion Plan

Henry Stern, Former Chief of Parks, Joins Legal Effort to Block the NYU Expansion.

From The Wall Street Journal :

Henry Stern, who led the Parks Department for 15 years under mayors Ed Koch and Rudolph Giuliani, said in an affidavit filed Friday that the city had for decades "either expressly or impliedly" dedicated the four sections on the superblocks between Houston and West Third streets as public parks. Mr. Stern's affidavit was part of a legal effort to block the NYU expansion.

The tracts of land—LaGuardia Park, LaGuardia Corner Gardens, Mercer Playground and the Mercer-Houston dog run—would be taken for either the permanent or temporary use of NYU in the construction of its planned 1 million-square-foot development. The City Council voted to approve the expansion plan in July, over the opposition of some neighborhood groups and members of the university's faculty.

"It was always the City's intent in continuously making these sites available to the public for recreational use over many years to treat them as dedicated parkland," Mr. Stern's affidavit says.

Read more : Former Parks Chief Opposes NYU Expansion Plan