November 4th, 2011
National Cycling Association unveils plan for velodrome and BMX park in Kingsbridge Armory
National Cycling Association unveils plan for
velodrome and BMX park in Kingsbridge Armory
Would rent landmark site for youth programs and six-day bicycle races
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, November 3 2011, 6:31 PM
Handout
A rendering of plans for a velodrome in the Kingsbridge Armory.
Michael Schwartz for New York Daily News
The long vacant Kingsbridge Armory could be site of a world-class velodrome and BMX park. …
August 13th, 2011
“Why did you allow the commissioner to destroy our skate park?”
Here is a video of me asking NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe a question about the Benjamin Soto skate park on August 9th, 2011 at the Museum of New York City. More about the meeting here.
I guess he didn’t see this video.
Councilman Oddo Threatens To Cut Funds To Parks Department from Group Home Bikes on Vimeo.
Thanks Johanna at parkslope.patch.com
August 8th, 2011
Councilman Oddo Threatens To Cut Funds To NYC Parks Department because of mishandling of skate park
Councilman Oddo Threatens To Cut Funds To Parks Department from Group Home Bikes on Vimeo.
Whole story here.
July 10th, 2011
Bikers’ Dream: A Bronx Velodrome and Indoor Skate Park.
Bikers’ Dream: A Bronx Velodrome
Above left, Fred Sass/The New York Times; Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
Above left, the Kingsbridge Armory briefly revived six-day bicycle racing in New York in 1948. Jack Simes, far left, and Mike Green want to restore the long-vacant and much-fought-over armory, right, for cycling events.
By J. DAVID GOODMAN
DWARFED by the soaring expanse of the long-vacant Kingsbridge Armory, a small group of bike advocates and Bronx residents strolled through the main hall recently and imagined a mecca of bicycling.
Picture it: Over here, young BMX riders from the neighborhood perform tricks, spinning their bike frames and leaping over obstacles. Over there, racers warm up and cool down, as fans drink Belgian beer at an indoor bar and live bands play. …
July 2nd, 2011
New Soto Skate Park: Where’s the challenge? say skateboarders and bikers
Soto Skate Park’s new look with no ramps. “This is a slap in the face,” said Stephen Quigley, 17, of Grant City, a constant presence at the skate park for the past four years. “It’s like taking tackle out of football.” (Staten Island Advance/Virginia N. Sherry)STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – MIDLAND BEACH – Young skateboard and BMX enthusiasts who previously flocked to Benjamin Soto Skate Park from all over Staten Island expressed astonishment and disappointment last week about what they see as the dumbed-down version of the borough’s only skate park. The city’s Parks Department reopened the site on June 16.
“This is terrible – there are no ramps – this place is not a skate park any more,” said Woodrow resident Matt Duffy, 14, who attends Tottenville High School and gets from his South Shore home to the Midland Beach facility via the Staten Island Railway (SIR).
Great Kills resident Chris Nazzaro, 17, a recent graduate of Monsignor Farrell High School who will enter the College of Staten Island (CSI) as a freshman, agreed. “I’ll grind the rails for a little, and then find somewhere else to go,” he said.
“The old park was fine – we had a good and decent park – all it needed was repairs,” said Joshua Ocasio, a 20-year-old engineering major at CSI who lives in Prince’s Bay. “They just tore down everything. It should not have been bulldozed. This is crap.”
The Parks Department told the Advance on Monday that “six steel and concrete benches and multiple steel rails planned for the site are now installed,” and “a low concrete platform and ramp will be installed this summer.”
In a statement, the agency explained that “ramps over three feet require safety equipment and helmets and staff to monitor,” adding that “most of the new skate parks being built have primarily ‘street elements.’
“We hope to add concrete ramps, bowls and other elements when we have funding, but we will not be adding ramps over three feet as has been discussed with the community and elected officials on previous occasions,” the agency said.
“This is a slap in the face,” said Stephen Quigley, 17, of Grant City, a constant presence at the skate park for the past four years. “It’s like taking tackle out of football.”
“It’s a disgrace that it’s come down to this, and there’s only this to show,” said a disgusted Tim Cox, 15, of Bulls Head, a BMX enthusiast who attends McKee High School and sometimes rides his bike from the West Shore to Midland Beach when he cannot catch a car ride.
‘NO VARIETY’
From left to right, skateboarders Rich Rojas of Rosebank, 18; Joshua Ocasio of Prince’s Bay, 20; and Akeim Whylie, 16, also of Rosebank. “They should add quarter-pipes, banks, and ramps,” said Rojas, who used Soto Skate Park for four years before it was shut down and demolished.Skateboarders voiced similar complaints last week, all of them upset about the lack of ramps that allowed them to ride, “get air,” and establish momentum for other tricks. “You can’t fly off any of this stuff – there’s no variety,” one of them said.
“I can’t skate transition and do ‘tranny’ tricks. It’s all rails and street stuff,” another complained.
“It’s the worst thing ever. They should take it back, and put in some real edges,” said Akeim Whylie, 16, who lives in Rosebank and attends Ft. Hamilton High School in Brooklyn. “This is like junkyard welding,” he commented, pointing to the low metal rails. “I know because my dad is a welder. I want to unbolt this stuff, and bring it home for my dad to make better.”
His friend Rich Rojas, 18 – a McKee High School student, also from Rosebank – said that the newly reopened park “is not what I was expecting. I’m a little grateful, but they should add quarter-pipes, banks, and ramps.
“They didn’t consult with us when they made this. There should be fewer rails,” added Rojas, a user of the park for the last four years.
The whole point of skate parks is the availability of infrastructure not easily – and legally – found on the streets, the young riders explained.
“Kids go pro at 14 years old,” said Quigley of Grant City. “So for those of us trying to go pro, this is wasted time that we can’t get back. This was a place to learn – the only place on Staten Island.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
“We recognize that the current ‘street elements’ may not accommodate all styles of riding, and we are working with the skateboard and BMX community to identify and advocate for either future enhancements to Ben Soto, or the complete rebuild of a new skate park at the same location,” the Parks Department said in its statement. The agency noted, however, that “there is no budget at this time” to reconstruct Soto Skate Park.
BMX bikers at Soto Skate Park — “This is a slap in the face,” said one.“We are also investigating additional skate park opportunities in Staten Island parks,” the agency added. “We are now considering the possibility of adaptively-reusing the old Safari Amusement Park site (at Arthur Kill Road and Richmond Avenue, owned by the Parks Department) as a skate park,” the agency stated, noting that “a Request for Proposal for the operation of the adjacent building facility as a Parks Concession was released on April 20, and the deadline was June 23.
Read the whole story here
http://www.silive.com/eastshore/index.ssf/2011/06/new_soto_skate_park_no_challen.html
June 26th, 2011
NYC Parks Dept fails at rebuilding Benjamin Soto Skate park
See the whole story here.
http://www.grouphomebikes.com/2011/06/more-photos-of-ben-soto-skatepark/
June 26th, 2011
The Bronx‘s long-vacant, hotly disputed Kingsbridge Armory could become a massive cycling palace, housing a velodrome and a BMX course.
A proposal submitted this spring to the borough president’s task force calls for the rundown, fortresslike building to host international racing events and free programs for kids. The armory’s large 600-by-300-foot drill floor makes it especially appealing, said would-be developer Michael Green, former president of the Century Road Club Association.
“We want to get more young people involved in cycling,” said Green, who pointed to the success of a similar project, the 168th St. Armory Track and Field Center in Washington Heights.
The proposal for a cycling center – one of several ideas under task force review – follows a 2009 battle over a plan to redevelop the armory into an enormous shopping mall.
Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. warred with Mayor Bloomberg over the plan, and demanded wage guarantees for anyone who worked there. In 2009, the City Council sided with Diaz and voted the project down.
About a year ago, Diaz formed the task force and later commissioned a study by students from New York University‘s Robert F. Wagner School for Public Service. He’s expected to release the study’s findings soon and outline the other proposals under review.
A spokesman for the city’s Economic Development Corp. said the Bloomberg administration will “listen to all feasible proposals that include private-sector investment and use city funds responsibly.”
Green said he and his partner, Jack Simes, president of the National Cycling Association, already have financial backers for the Kingsbridge Road cycling project.
Mel Rodriguez, founder of Bike the Bronx, said a cycling center could help keep kids healthy and slim.
“I’m 100% for it,” said Rodriguez, of Co-op City. “It could help solve the problem of obesity in the Bronx.”
But local activist Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter questioned the need, saying a cycling center isn’t one of her neighborhood’s top priorities. “We need schools built. We need living-wage jobs at the armory…and affordable food options,” Pilgrim-Hunter said.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/06/20/2011-06-20_history_bronx_building_kingsbridge_armory_may_become_cycling_center_and_bmx_cour.html#ixzz1Q4H1IgTs
May 17th, 2011
Media coverage of the Protest for the Ben Soto skate park
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — They had iPods in their pockets rather than guitars on their laps, and the flowers in their hair more likely hailed from the Mall than San Francisco’s hillsides.
But the spirit of the 1960s, of civil disobedience and of fighting for what’s right, pulsed just the same yesterday through the crowd of about 300 teens outside New Dorp High School, during a half-day “sit-in” protesting the dismantling of their beloved Ben Soto Skate Park, located blocks away.
The event, attended by their teachers and observed by a relaxed gathering of school police just paces away, was part real-life advocacy, part performance art, and the culminating act of the academic year for the school’s Academy of Fine and Dramatic Arts.
It was also timed to coincide with school performances this weekend of the iconic hippie musical, “Hair,” and in advance of a giant rally planned for Sunday at the site of the shuttered Midland Beach skate park.
“If you don’t get what you want by waiting, you have to take action,” said New Dorp senior and avid skateboarder Marco Hernandez, who advocated for the park at numerous civic meetings even before his classmates became involved. “A lot of people together can make a difference.”
Behind him, the students raised their fists in the air and chanted “Soto!” “Soto!” Most sat cross-legged on the cool cement, with an especially passionate group having bound themselves with rope to the 32-foot-high aluminum sculpture at the school entrance.
“This educates them what their options are on having their voices heard,” said Arthur Vallario, who teaches art. “These kids chose to bring attention to the park because all of them know about it and are affected by what happened.”
The Ben Soto Skate Park opened in April 2005 and drew thousands of sports enthusiasts before it was padlocked and temporarily closed last fall by the city Parks Department for what was said to be “maintenance and repair.”
A plan is under way to resurrect the park. But the new design is not slated to include the features that drew so many BMX bikers and skateboarders to the site, advocates say.
“I want to let you know, that if you feel like you can’t do something to better your community, you can!” Edward Pollio, the park’s most vocal advocate, shouted over the roar of teens.
New Dorp High Scool students stage a sit-inAbout 300 teens took part in a protest against the dismantling of Soto Skate Park.Watch video …
