Popping up on Parkside Place

Major changes have been announced for Norwood with new construction planned for a rocky slope that residents had always believed was parkland. This has raised concerns.

The site is a long, narrow rock outcropping that separates Parkside Place from Webster Avenue in The Bronx. It is near my home and I know it well. Almost nobody ever climbs up on the rocks above Webster Avenue. There's no reason they would. I am one of the few who has. I was curious about a stair that extended from 207th Street down to Webster Avenue on old maps. It was unclear if it was merely planned or if had actually been built and then removed at some point long forgotten. I went looking for any remnants under the vegetation. There is some concrete that might have been part of a stair, although I can't be sure, as well as some mortar used to stabilize the rock outcropping to avoid a collapse onto the street below.

A stair location is indicated on the Borough President's street title map

Parkside Place is a short, three-block-long street that climbs over and back down those rocks. It splits off from Webster Avenue, climbs the hill to 209th Street, continues to 207th Street, and then drops back down to merge back with Webster. It takes its name from the tree-covered rock outcrop that it climbs over, which has never been a real park, but is park-like as a visual resource.

Recently, somebody started clearing the trees off the rocks. Local residents became alarmed. It was commonly believed this was City parkland (in no small part because the Department of Parks and Recreation showed it as parkland on their interactive parks map), and now it was being clearcut without warning. 

Trailer Park Education

The New York Times recently ran an article about New York City's desire to stop using trailers for classroom space. It noted:

"As of a 2012 count, about 5 million students across the United States were being housed in 280,000 trailers..."

I wish I could say I was shocked, but our nation has allowed these deplorable conditions for decades. The anti-government rhetoric that took root in the 1980s changed the way we look at public education. The poor conditions the Times noted were the conditions of much of my own public education. It was not until I spent more time looking at older school buildings and reading historical documents that I came to understand just how much we have devalued our schools.

We no longer treat schools as the civic heart of our communities. We are not paying and honoring teachers as community leaders who inspire our future leaders. The buildings where we send our children have abandoned the use of architecture to communicate the importance of knowledge. You're lucky if the roof doesn't leak.

There is nothing new about this. Decades ago, my high school classrooms had multiple buckets to catch the water that leaked through every time it rained (and it rained very often in Oregon). When I was in middle school, I took some of my classes in one of those trailers. It was dubbed "the relocatable," although it was never relocated anywhere. It stood in the same place for over 20 years after I attended the school.

That trailer was scrapped in recent years. Students no longer try to learn in that decrepit shack, but the situation has hardly improved. Rather than building a new school or a permanent extension, they merely bought a new trailer a few years ago and plopped it down on another side of the school.

This stands in stark contrast to the way America once viewed our schools. Most people can probably think of at least one grand, old school that represented a major public investment in a solid building with proud architecture. The citizens who built those schools buildings had much less comfortable lives than we have today, yet they made the sacrifice to ensure the school was solid and looked important.

As an example, consider the early years of Albany, Oregon, when it was growing quickly and promoting itself. The early civic leaders viewed public education as a key to their boosterism. An 1888 book published to attract new businesses emphasized how well they paid the teachers. It compared how many months of school they provided each year and promised they were making progress for more. The school building was a key feature.

Speeding Past Schools During Alternate Side Parking

On a day off from work this week, I noticed something troubling about the New York Police Department's approach to enforcing Alternate Side Parking. Drivers were speeding past the local grade school, and it looked like the NYPD's methods were inadvertently contributing to the problem.

The New York Police Department generally allows double parking on the opposite side of the street during Alternate Side Parking for street cleaning. Nobody seems to really know or understand how this rule is supported in law, but it is generally observed and respected. There is a situation, however, where the NYPD does not allow this practice. You cannot double park on a block that has a school.

Supposedly there is some safety concern that motivates the NYPD to reign in the permissiveness around schools. If there is any effect, however, it quite likely makes the situation more dangerous. What I saw this week was cars absolutely flying down the block past the local grade school.

A typical NYC block, where double parking is allowed during Alternate Side Parking

The next block over with a school, where double parking isn't allowed. It encourages speeding

After a look around, the reason seemed obvious. Consider the blocks that allow double parking. The parking maintains a narrower effective width on the street, which helps discourage speeding. The blocks with schools, however, create wide open roads where drivers feel comfortable stepping on the gas.

Since the NYPD is clearly comfortable allowing the widespread practice of double parking during Alternate Side Parking, they should reevaluate their strict enforcement on blocks with schools. These may be the locations where double parking may actually be most appropriate.