Wednesday, September 24th join committed park advocates, open space advocates, neighbors and more at a press conference/rally at LaGuardia Park, LaGuardia Place between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets, reaffirming the belief that NYU’s expansion plans are way out of scale and cannot seize parkland and open space.
More information:
Rally and Press Conference Featuring a Performance by the World Famous STOMP. Wednesday, September 24, 2014 @ Noon @ LaGuardia Park (LaGuardia Place between W3rd and Bleecker Sts.)
Members of the internationally acclaimed East Village-based group STOMP, will perform and join parks, gardens and open space supporters, Village residents and elected officials @ our rally to send a message to NYU: “Save Our Parks!” After our rally, petitioners in the lawsuit that saved Mercer Playground, LaGuardia Corner Gardens, and LaGuardia Park from being destroyed, will be in court to fight an appeal by NYU and the City that, if successful, would endanger those parks again. Send a message, lend your voice!
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On January 7th, Judge Donna Mills vindicated the beliefs of parks advocates and community members by officially declaring three Greenwich Village parks as City parkland, effectively halting redevelopment efforts by NYU that would have stripped the community of this valuable open space. Our parks are precious resources in this City and it is our responsibility to continue to fight for them and make each of our communities the sort of places we wish to live. The City and NYU are now appealing her ruling, once again threatening our green spaces. We need your support!
The lineup of guests was spectacular (for a longtime follower of city politics, anyway) and it was something quite thrilling to witness. But turnout was surprisingly low in view of the caliber of political guests. I’d have been unsurprised to see two or three times as many people attend. Also disappointed to see a lone cameraman from Fox but no one from, say, NY1. An event on a city street with Jerry Nadler, Tish James, Dan Squadron, Brad Hoylman, and Henry Stern plus a brief number by STOMP would have been *exactly* their sort of thing. What sort of pre-event publicity or outreach was there? Heck, I live here and wouldn’t have heard about the rally happening had I not read about it in this post, the day before.
Hi Richard, I dont know. I did not realize all these elected officials were going to be there initially. I did see a couple of notices about it but I dont know how most found out about it. I do notice that sometimes when there are multiple press conferences on an issue, interest peters out after a bit… although NYU and its expansion is not just any issue. I am not sure if that is what happened here. So glad you went (and found out here!)!
Your questions tho are very spot on.
Cathryn