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Vol. 34, No. 4
September 2010
City Limits is published bi-monthly
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IN THIS ISSUE
FIRST FOCUS
4 | Change Delayed For Foster Kids
ACS slows down an historic shift
By Helen Zelon
6 | Explaining Unexplained Deaths
A post-mortem on 2008’s “undetermined” fatalities
By Jarrett Murphy
10 | The Island Charts A Course
Will Staten Island’s polluted past beget a greener future?
By Jake Mooney
THE FEATURE
A Risky Play
Magazine Distribution: For Retail and
Newsstand Distribution opportunities,
Was New York City’s shift to artificial grass
visit www.citylimits.org/distribution or a 300-million-dollar mistake?
e-mail distribute@citylimits.org By Patrick Arden / Photographs by Adi Talwar
Sponsorship and Advertising: We offer
organizations, businesses and agencies
advertising and sponsorship opportuni-
ties on CityLimits.org and in City Limits CHAPTERS SIDEBARS
magazine’s print and digital editions. 13 | A Questionable Call 19 | Chalk Talk
Additional advertising opportunities are
Trouble on a soccer field What coaches think of turf
available on City Limits’ Mobile Page,
Video Features and E-Newsletters. By Patrick Arden
Visit www.citylimits.org/advertise to 14 | The Ground Game
download our media kit and rate card Signs of deterioration at 24 | Missing Moses’ Muscle
or call 212-614-5398. turf fields The politics of parks
Jobs and Marketplace: Submit job
By Jarrett Murphy
listings, calendar events, marketplace 23 | Costs and Benefits
listings and announcements at The economic case for turf 37 | Healthy Skepticism
www.citylimits.org/post. What we know and don’t
33 | The City on Defense about turf fields
Periodical Postage Paid:
New York, NY 10001 Dismissing questions about By Patrick Arden
City Limits (USPS 498-890) health
(ISSN: 0199-0330) 45 | Partners Or Perils?
40 | ‘It Won’t Taste Great’ The debate over private
If the Postal Service alerts us that your
magazine is undeliverable, we have no fur-
The health questions multiply groups in public parks
ther obligation unless we receive a corrected By Jarrett Murphy
address within a year. Postmaster: Please 49 | A Test for Testing
send address changes to: P.O. Box 3000, New products, new rules 50 | Game Changers
Denville, NJ 07834-9253
How turf shapes sports
Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved. 59 | A Swing and a Hit By Jarrett Murphy
An alternative at the ballpark
No portion or portions of this journal
may be reprinted without the express
permission of the publishers. City Limits
is indexed in the Alternative Press Index
and the Avery Index to Architectural
MORE
60 | Homework
Periodicals and is available on microfilm ON THE COVER:
from ProQuest, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Ways to use and help New York's parks Soccer players at
Flushing Meadows
62 | ExtraExtra Park demonstrate
Announcements, jobs and office space flaws in the
artificial turf.
Photo by Adi Talwar
64 | LookBack
Back to the Beach
1
 EDITOR'S
DESK
A Walk in the Parks
Jerome Avenue runs the spine of the West Bronx and links
a chain of city parks that reflect all the wonder of New
York’s park system and all the complexity of public space
in today’s city.
At its northern end, Jerome runs into Van Cortlandt Park,
the city's fourth largest. Across its 1,146 acres, Van Cortlandt
features horse stables, a Gaelic football pitch, cross-country
trails and two golf facilities. It also features a massive con-
struction site where the Bloomberg administration is build-
ing a filtration plant for drinking water. Chosen over a site
in Westchester County as a lower-
cost option, the site is now at least a
billion dollars over budget. But the
project netted the city $243 million
in mitigation funds that are now go-
ing to improve parks in the area.
Head south and you pass
Mosholu Parkway. Along the
parkway is a key section of the
greenway that links an expanding
network of bike paths throughout
the Bronx and the wider city. On
some of the trees there are signs
that say "No barbecuing." Locals are divided over whether
the prohibition is necessary.
In St. James Park in Kingsbridge, there's a brand-new rec-
reation center where people can work out with machines
and free weights for only $50 a year. At 169th Street, you
pass the first of three little triangles of park, products of a
decades-long Parks Department effort to claim any possible
space for green. And then you come to Mullaly Park, part
of which was destroyed to make way for a more luxurious
stadium for one of the richest sports franchises on earth. In
what remains of Mullaly Park, some of the fields are that pe-
culiar shade of green that is increasingly seen in the age of
artificial turf.
New York City's park system is a civic jewel, the fruit of
seeds sown by wise city fathers and mothers—who first set
Clarification: In our July issue, a story on teen depression and suicide referred
to a city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene page on MySpace. That
“Mindspace” feature deals with a range of issues, not just suicide prevention.
2 A Risky Play
aside land for parks—and more controversial modern fig-
ures, like Robert Moses, who dramatically expanded city
parks and professionalized the service that runs them. From
the beaches of Coney Island to Staten Island's Greenbelt to
the horse trails of Pelham Bay Park, the dedicated people
who run the park system help make the city what it is.
The decisions the Parks Department renders are often
high-stakes—and in one case, this issue of City Limits finds
substantial evidence that a risky bet has gone bad. Replacing
natural-grass fields with artificial
turf may have seemed a wise choice
10 years ago. Evidence soon mount-
ed, however, in Europe and across
the U.S. as well as here in New York,
that raised serious health and envi-
ronmental concerns. And now, as
Patrick Arden reports in the pages
that follow, there is new evidence
that turf fields are not as resilient as
their proponents claimed, under-
mining the case that artificial green
would save real greenbacks.
But these acts and attitudes didn't develop in a vacuum.
In the 35 years since the city's fiscal crisis, New York City's
parks have been underfunded, losing out in the annual
budget scramble to schools, police, fire and other functions
with more political power behind them. To maintain grass
fields properly would require more money than the Parks
Department currently gets.
In part because of that budget pressure, and in spite of all
the concerns about turf that this issue documents, dozens
more city parks probably will soon get turf fields. When they
are installed, those bright-green patches will reflect, like the
parks along Jerome Avenue, the decisions and priorities of
years gone by.
—Jarrett Murphy
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
 City Limits staff
Director
Mark Anthony Thomas

Editor-in-Chief
Jarrett Murphy

What’s new and what’s
next at citylimits.org
Deputy Editor
Kelly Virella
Barbed wire at Bridges Juvenile Facility in the Bronx, which is
slated to be closed as part of a sweeping overhaul of the city's
Contributing Editors
juvenile justice system. Photo by Marc Fader.
Neil deMause, Marc Fader, Eileen
Markey, Jake Mooney, Helen Zelon

“There are plenty of adolescents everywhere Advertising Director

Allison Tellis-Hinds
that commit … crimes but are not treated as
criminals. … [W]e arrest, prosecute and jail Marketing Assistant
Nekoro Gomes
adolescents of color almost exclusively. As
you might guess, the majority come from the Creative Direction
Smyrski Creative
poorest communities in New York City.”
-Attorney Tamara Steckler in "Juvenile Crime Indicts Adults," July 8, 2010 Proofreader
Danial Adkison

Interns
A Privatization Pioneer Summertime Slump Chris Giblin, Lauren Raheja,
Mayor Bloomberg Joshua Burke
tapped Stephen
Goldsmith to be the
new deputy mayor
for operations Board
because of the
former Indianapolis Mark Edmiston, chair
mayor's experience Adam Blumenthal
“reinventing government.” But Andy Breslau
as Neil deMause reports on Michael Connor
our site, some of those who saw In June the national unemployment David R. Jones
Goldsmith's work firsthand say rate for people aged 16 to 19 was Andy Reicher
the “Indianapolis miracle” was a near record-high 26 percent. Michele Webb
less an indicator of the magic of Reporters Jordan Shakeshaft and
privatization than of its limits. What Michael Cohen met up with several
does Goldsmith have planned for New York teens tense not just about
his next act? this summer, but the choppy job
market that lies beyond. In our next issue
Mom and
Popeye's ©
ALSO ONLINE The death and life of
New York City's worst transit rides ∙ President Obama's New York's neighborhood
anti-poverty plan meets new skepticism ∙Inside the businesses
hottest state races ∙ Development Dan's legacy in limbo Coming in OCTOBER

Photos courtesy City Hall, Jordan Shakeshaft.

www.citylimits.org 3
 FIRST
FOCUS NEWS FROM THE
FIVE BOROUGHS
CHILD WELFARE
Change Delayed
For Foster Kids
ACS slows down an historic shift
For long-time foster parent Antoi-
nette Cotman of Ozone Park, who
has helped to raise more than 25 fos-
ter children over 30 years and now
hosts a 12-year-old foster daughter,
wrenching changes make functioning
as a foster-parent far more challeng-
ing, and the children pay a steep price.
“Any disconnection is traumatic to
children because of attachment issues
they have,” she says.
A profound wave of change was sup-
posed to sweep through New York’s
child welfare world this year, as the
city’s Administration for Children’s
Services advanced its new philosophy
of keeping children in their homes or
as close to them as possible. But when
it selected the private agencies to im-
plement this change, ACS decreased
contracts for many providers with
long-established connections to ACS,
with little clarity on how proposals
were vetted or decisions made.
In early July, ACS announced a dra-
matic reversal, telling agencies it would
rescind contract awards in a broad
swath of categories, because “re-evalu-
ation and re-scoring … is warranted.”
What this sudden change means for
the 16,000 children in foster care and
4 A Risky Play
Antoinette Cotman has hosted 25 foster children, and worries that changes in city child welfare
policy will disrupt life for kids in foster care. But advocates generally hail the changes, which aim
to keep kids closer to their families. Photo by Marc Fader.
the 257 children a day who are reported
as abused or neglected is not yet clear.
A major MOVE
Mayor Giuliani created ACS in 1996.
Today, the agency investigates abuse
and neglect reports on approximately
92,000 children a year. (About two-
thirds of the reports develop into
long-term cases managed by ACS.)
Its preventive services support 31,000
children and their families.
For children who are removed from
their homes, ACS runs a two-pronged
residential system: foster families that
take in individual children and group
homes operated by contractors that
host a number of ACS clients at a time.
Some children are instead placed in
kinship care with extended family,
rather than with new foster families.
A small fraction—on average, 1,600 a
year—are adopted.
Three years ago, ACS policies be-
gan to change. In 2007, the agency’s
“Improved Outcomes for Children”
initiative outlined a new approach de-
signed to keep children at home when
possible, and in their own communi-
ties if foster care was mandated. Under
this new approach, ACS aims to “push
everyone down a level” in the child-
welfare hierarchy, says Nicole Lavan,
senior policy officer at the Federation
of Protestant Welfare Agencies: Chil-
dren who in previous years might have
lived in a group home might move to
family foster care. Those who would
have been foster children might stay
with their family and receive preven-
tive services.
In 2009, ACS issued a new request for
proposals reflecting this vastly changed
approach. That led to an 18-month pro-
cess to evaluate current providers and
identify new ones. In total, 67 agencies
were awarded child welfare contracts,
which were announced in May 2010.
But ACS now says that there were se-
rious errors in that multi-step scoring
process, which providers had criticized
as dense and opaque. On July 8th, the
agency convened a meeting of service
providers to explain the reversal. “ACS
has always been fully committed to be-
ing forthright with its providers,” ACS
Commissioner John Mattingly said. “In
this instance an error was made. ACS
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
came forward immediately and admit-
ted the mistake, and has presented a
reasonable plan to correct the problem
and ensure the integrity of this impor-
tant process.”
ACS said that current contracts
would be extended for a year, pending
More than one advocate
described the situation as
“chaos,” adding that some
agencies, having already
closed down programs,
will find gearing back up
to previous contract levels
very problematic.
the Comptroller’s approval, and that
they anticipated revised decisions on
awards by late September or early Oc-
tober. That means that some long-time
providers will have funding restored
and, many worry, new providers will
be removed from the agency’s list.
More than one advocate described
the situation as “chaos,” adding that
some agencies, having already closed
down programs, will find gearing
back up to previous contract levels
very problematic.
Shrinking resources
The contract awards were only one of
the concerns that experts and service
providers have voiced about the sea
change at ACS.
The budget is a primary worry.
Changes in the fiscal year 2011 bud-
get include a 25 percent reduction in
residential foster care beds and a two-
thirds cut in community-based group
www.citylimits.org
homes. Critically, a threatened 21
percent hit to preventive services—in-
cluding counseling, drug/alcohol treat-
ment and parenting classes designed
to keep families intact—that could
have affected 3,000 households was
largely restored in last-minute budget
negotiations.
The foster-
care cuts do
not reflect
empty beds
in the foster-
care network:
Earlier this
year, chil-
dren placed
by ACS filled
all of the 451
beds now be-
ing cut. And
cuts in resi-
dential care
programs
dig into an
already-
lean budget:
Funding for
residential
programs was trimmed by 38 percent
in 2005.
Overall, ACS statistics show a steady
rise of youth in need of ACS support—
from 50,000 children in 2005 to 64,700
in 2009, including a steep increase in
reports of abuse and neglect in foster
care—yet the current budget proposes
a $33 million decrease, including cuts
to family and residential foster care,
according to sources at the city’s In-
dependent Budget Office. (Adopted
budgets do change in practice: In fiscal
2010, for example, the adopted budget
for ACS was $2.67 billion, while actual
spending reached $2.9 billion.)
ACS plans to add new services even
as cuts are made, including mobile cri-
sis response teams and services target-
ing developmentally disabled youth,
children who have been sexually ex-
ploited and youth who have participat-
ed in sexual aggression or abuse.
Both new services and cuts, an-
nounced in June, were intended to be in
place by October for foster care and pre-
ventive services programs, and by April
2011 for children in group-home care,
a timeline that will surely be affected
by ACS’ reworking of the RFP process.
The trials of transition
Some advocates’ concerns go beyond
budgets or the RFP. While they endorse
shifting kids from getting foster care
to receiving services within their own
families, they question the plans for
youth who are more deeply involved in
the system.
Most of the children in group-
home care are older than 12 and are
more difficult to place in traditional
homes. “Many children are there
specifically because they require
specialized supervision that many
foster families find difficult to provide,”
Claude Meyers, president and CEO
of Abbott House, told City Limits via
email. Abbott provides services to ACS
clients, and its contracts were decreased
in the current RFP. “For these children,
the loss of any significant relationship
may be traumatic. We are concerned
that impending changes may be very
difficult for those whose lives have
already experienced too many losses.”
While group homes are far from ide-
al, some teens forge relationships with
counselors and caregivers that lead to
eventual adoption or a return to a fos-
ter family or kinship care, with rela-
tives instead of birth parents. In other
cases, group homes are the fragile plat-
forms from which youth who age out
of foster care launch into emancipated,
independent adult lives. Shifting these
already-vulnerable young people to
new agencies means establishing new
connections, trust and communication
with caseworkers, health-care provid-
ers, therapists and caregivers.
Cotman has seen the disruption
first-hand. Ten years ago, the agency
Cotman worked with closed, disrupt-
ing a delicate network of professionals
that had helped her navigate her foster
kids’ emotional, physical and therapeu-
5
tic needs. Now, Cotman worries that
the RFP’s proposed cuts to her current
agency, Little Flower, will threaten the
welfare of her foster children. “A lot
of these children have connections to
therapeutic professionals,” Cotman
explained. “The nurses in the clinic,
the behavioral specialist that comes to
the home. When you keep changing
their situation, it’s like musical chairs.
For some children, this is the third or
fourth time these changes have hap-
pened to them.”
“It’s the same kind of detachment
when you take a child from a parent
and put her in a new setting [with a
foster family],” said Cotman. “These
kids have trouble attaching and
trusting adults. Every comfort level
is important.”
Little Flower manages the cases of
approximately 1,400 foster children
and has faced considerable public
scrutiny since a 2009 fatal accident
involving foster children and an unau-
thorized, inebriated driver. When the
current RFP was first released, Little
Flower filed a lawsuit to protest the
agency’s exclusion from future foster
care contracts. They have since re-
scinded the lawsuit, since ACS’s pull-
back of the RFP has essentially restored
Little Flower’s existing contracts.
Cotman (who has four daughters
and three adopted, former-foster sons)
says that future changes could influ-
ence her decision to take children
into foster care—and she worries that
changes in the current RFP will under-
mine her ability to care for her newest
foster child, a 12-year-old girl, whose
siblings have been placed in another
nearby foster-family home.
“I have a dual problem,” she said.
“All this upheaval is a consideration
in taking in a new child. Bringing her
in, getting her into the family network,
knowing who to call with questions…
If this change occurs, I could find my-
self dealing with behavior issues. I’d
have no one to ask anything about her,
because they’re gone.”
— Helen Zelon
6 A Risky Play
HEALTH
Explaining
Unexplained
Deaths
A postmortem of 2008’s
“undetermined” fatalities
We know that the dead man was 54.
He was white. He was an organ donor.
He drank too much, and it gave him a
fatty liver. His heart showed signs of
disease, and he had genetic conditions
that made him susceptible to blood
clots. He died in 2008.
The Office of the Chief Medical Ex-
aminer (OCME) knows what killed
him—a brain injury sustained in a fall.
But the OCME does not know whether
he fell, jumped or was pushed.
About every 10 minutes, someone in
New York dies, and in the vast major-
ity of cases the details of the death are
Each year, nearly 200 deaths are
categorized in the Department
of Health and Mental Hygiene’s
vital statistics report as “events
of undetermined intent.”
clear. Most die of “natural causes,” like
heart disease or cancer. A few thousand
die in accidents, kill themselves or are
killed by someone else.
But each year, nearly 200 deaths are
categorized in the Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene’s vital statistics
report as “events of undetermined
intent.” These are cases in which the city’s
medical examiner cannot determine
whether the person died of natural
causes, accident, suicide or murder.
City Limits obtained redacted cop-
ies of autopsy reports on deaths in
2008 that were categorized as events
of undetermined intent. (The OCME,
intent on protecting the privacy of the
dead, initially rejected our request for
those documents but relented after we
appealed and withdrew a request for
identifying information.)
If—hypothetically—the 192 deaths
of undetermined intent in 2008 were all
murders, the city’s murder rate would
have been 34 percent higher. In the un-
likely event that they were all suicides,
the city’s suicide rate would have been
41 percent higher.
To the layman’s eye, few of the cases
seem likely to have been murders; the
uncertainty seems to be whether they
were accidents or suicides. In any event,
these undetermined cases don’t neces-
sarily reveal an alarming increase in
suicide or murder. Instead, they pres-
ent a stark commentary on how some
New Yorkers die, and the unheralded
mysteries behind those deaths.
Several cases suggest lives of consid-
erable hardship, of substance abuse and
chronic health problems like obesity,
diabetes, emphysema and seizure dis-
orders. Other cases feature unusual ele-
ments, like the man who was killed by
police or the formerly conjoined twin
who died of a drug overdose.
The Office of Chief Medical Ex-
aminer, which determines cause and
manner of death, does not declare
deaths to be of “undetermined intent,”
a term only used by the Department of
Health. The OCME leaves “intent” out
of it but can decide that the cause of
death (whether a person died of a heart
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
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attack or drowning, for instance) or the
manner of death (whether it was natu-
ral, accidental or intentional) was un-
determined. In some cases, both cause
and manner are question marks.
“Sometimes the cause of death is
known—say a gunshot to the head—
but the manner of death might not
be figured out, as to whether it’s acci-
dental, suicide or homicide,” says Dr.
Michael Baden, a 25-year veteran of
the OCME who was chief in 1978 and
1979. “Sometimes one finds skeletal
remains and cannot tell the cause of
death, but from the circumstances, one
can tell it’s a homicide.”
Since 1967, more than 20,000
city deaths have been listed as “of
undetermined intent” (or, in earlier
years, simply as “ill-defined"), a mere
fraction of total deaths over that
time. The categories used to describe
deaths have evolved, so year-to- year
comparisons are imperfect, but the
highest number of undetermined
deaths was in 1971 (1,206 deaths). In
the ‘70s and ‘80s, undetermined deaths
averaged 730 a year; in the past decade,
they averaged 217 a year.
The falloff in undetermined-man-
ner deaths partly reflects the general
decrease in death in the city. In 1968,
more than 91,000 people died in New
York; in 2008, only about 54,000 did.
The OCME provided City Limits
with 103 autopsy files on deaths of un-
determined manner from 2008. Most
(42 percent) involved white people;
Hispanics and blacks each made up
about a quarter of the cases. Three-
quarters of the dead were men; one
person’s gender couldn’t be deter-
mined. While the age of a few victims
could only be approximated—one was
listed as “30-50 years old”—about half
were in their 30s or 40s. The oldest
was 91. The youngest was 1; he died of
acute bronchopneumonia.
The bulk of the deaths (40 percent)
involved blunt trauma, including sev-
eral falls, a person hit by a train and
another who died after “exiting motor
vehicle.” Another 18 percent were over-
8 A Risky Play
The Chief Medical Examiner has offices in every borough and a call center that's staffed 24/7.
Photo by Marc Fader.
doses. Eleven percent drowned. Two
died of smoke inhalation.
The cause of death can sometimes
lend itself to questions about the man-
ner, says Baden. “There are certain
causes of death,” he says, “where the
autopsy may not be sufficient to deter-
mine the manner of death because the
injuries will look the same whether [in
the case of a fall] the person jumped,
fell accidentally or was pushed. The
same with unwitnessed drowning or
people dying in fires.”
In such cases, medical examiners
need to see more than the body. They
look at the circumstances and scene of
death too, according to Ellen Borakove,
spokesperson for the OCME.
The OCME, which has bureaus in ev-
ery borough, has a 24-hour, seven-day-
a-week communication center at its
headquarters on First Avenue. When-
ever hospitals or police officers come
across a death that seems suspicious,
they are supposed to call the OCME.
“Our investigator gets on the phone
to the officer on the scene,” says Borak-
ove. “But we also do our investigation.
[The police] are looking for who did
it.“We’re looking for what happened.”
The OCME examiner visits the scene
and examines the body. Depending on
what’s found, the body might be re-
leased on the scene. But if something
warrants further investigation, the
OCME will take jurisdiction. In 20,000
cases reported to the OCME in the first
five months of the year, the medical ex-
aminer took jurisdiction in 5,500.
In 4,000 cases, autopsies were per-
formed. The OCME can do seven or
eight autopsies a day; each can take up
to four hours if, for instance, the paths
of multiple bullets that struck a person
must be tracked. All those efforts are
aimed at determining the cause and
manner of death and avoiding an in-
conclusive answer like “undetermined.”
“We do whatever we can until that
moment when we say it’s undeter-
mined,” says Borakove. And even for
cases in which the scene investigation,
the police report and the autopsy can-
not isolate a manner of death, the case
is not closed. The manner of death will
be listed as “undetermined,” but, says
Borakove, that can always change if
new information comes in.
That’s true for all deaths, not just
those of undetermined manner. Baden
recalls a case from the late ‘70s in which
a family brought in evidence question-
ing a determination that a 1932 death
had been suicide.
“They brought in documentation
45 years later that the landlord in the
apartment had been fined a number
of times by the Health Department
for having carbon monoxide leaks,” he
says. “They brought in sufficient infor-
mation that we changed the cause of
death from suicide to accident because
it was an accidental leak that the land-
lord tried to cover up.”
Adds Baden: “No death certificate is
written in granite.”
-Jarrett Murphy
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
 Left to right:
Veterans Park,
the Manhattan
ENVIRONMENT project site and
the sewage
The Island Charts plant

a Course
Will Staten Island’s polluted past
beget a greener future?

In November the Environmental Protection Agency

chose Staten Island’s North Shore as one of 10 char-
ter members of its Environmental Justice Showcase
Communities. The program targets communities with
“multiple, disproportionate environmental health bur-
dens” and “limits to effective participation in decisions”
about environmental issues. Activists have long com-
plained that the North Shore bears an unfair burden for
keeping the rest of Staten Island clean, employed and
well paid—from the shipyards that first contaminated
Arlington Marsh to the factories and warehouses that
lined the waterfront and left behind a host of pollut-
ants, including lead and even uranium. Here’s a guide to
the parts of New York’s fastest-growing borough where
past pollution and present plans present obstacles to a
greener future.
— Jake Mooney

KULL
VAN
2 KILL

5 3
8 1
7 6

9
ILL
RK
HU
ART

STATEN ISLAND

10 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4

 1. The 57-year-old Port
Richmond Water Pollu-
tion Control Plant soon
will get a $29 million
upgrade. But local activ-
ists note that the island’s
population has doubled
in the years since the
facility was built, and say
a true solution to the
area’s sewage problems
would involve building
new plants.
2. The state Depart-
ment of Health advises
handling Kill Van Kull
fish with care and never
eating striped bass from
that waterway. The most
worrisome contaminants
in the fish, the Depart-
ment of Health says,
are PCBs, dioxin and
cadmium.
3. In the 1920s, a fac-
tory owned by the Jewett
White Lead Company
caught fire and burned
www.citylimits.org
down. After a failed 5. Companies involved 7. The Howland Hook
attempt in the 1980s to in developing the Marine Terminal, one
find the site, the EPA in A-bomb stored 2,007 of Staten Island’s largest
2009 determined that the drums of high-grade businesses, is seeking to
lead must be removed. uranium at a warehouse expand its 187-acre site
The agency is taking soil here from 1940 to 1942. with a fourth container
samples now to plan the A federal investiga- ship berth. The $350 mil-
clean-up. tion concluded that a lion expansion promises
20-by-40-meter area at more than 300 jobs. But
4. In Veterans Park, EPA the site appeared to be it would pave over a rare
investigators research- contaminated. This year, undeveloped swath of
ing the Jewett White the Energy Department North Shore waterfront
Lead Company site last reversed its long-held and fill in or dredge
spring found traces disavowal of responsibili- 16.38 acres of coastal
of lead. A city Parks ty and decided to include wetlands, some of the
Department follow-up the land in its Formerly last in the city.
found amounts of lead Utilized Sites Remedial
that were below the safe Action Program. 8. If the container port
recommended limit, but expands, it will probably
unsafe levels of arsenic. 6. Proponents of the be required to mitigate
The Parks Department new Staten Island Termi- its impact by rehabilitat-
says there was “no im- nal, where cement will ing some of the heavily
mediate health risk” but arrive by boat, tout the polluted marsh. Some
starting last spring, the environmental benefits local environmentalists
department capped the of the facility. But its are opposed to the port
park’s lawns and planting local opponents focus expansion, but others are
beds with wood chips, on the end stage of the willing to tolerate it—if
a layer of fabric, clean process, when trucks still the company pledges to
topsoil, mulch and fresh come into play. save a different swath of
plantings. the coastal wetlands. (9)
11
Players run the field at Pelham
Bay Park. Seams like this one
form trip hazards.

Risky
A
PlayWas New York City’s
shift to artificial grass
a 300-million-dollar
mistake?

By PATRICK ARDEN
 THE FEATURE
A Questionable Call
Trouble on a soccer field
occer players shout at midfield, but not about
their game: The field is falling apart.
“It’s been like this for five years,”
complains Israel Arreola, as he
points to the open seams, torn
patches and wavy folds in the artificial turf
at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Refer-
ees for public school league games already
boycott two artificial-turf fields there, citing
fears of liability. “This is bad: holes everywhere,” says Arre-
ola, a Manhattan sous-chef who plays in a weekend league.
“Somebody’s going to get hurt.”
Over the past 12 years New York City has borrowed an es-
timated $300 million to put 204 artificial-turf fields at parks,
schools and playgrounds. An additional 52 fields are on the
drawing board.
The reasons behind this buying binge have been many,
ranging from the battle against obesity to an alleged cost sav-
ings on field maintenance. Artificial turf is part of PlaNYC,
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's blueprint for an environmen-
tally friendly future. Yet a City Limits investigation has
found that overuse and chronic neglect has run turf ragged
years ahead of schedule; price comparisons generally favor
natural grass, even in the long term; and the health risks of
turf—largely dismissed by the city after the destruction of
www.citylimits.org
one artificial field for high lead levels in late 2008—are much
broader and deeper than previously reported.
After years of rejecting health concerns, the city recently
agreed to switch materials and to set up new protocols for
testing artificial turf, but the backroom negotiations that
brought these concessions actually kept more threatening
information from seeing the light of day. It’s not clear that
the new testing regime will eliminate the health risks, and
the issues of cost and durability have not been addressed.
Relentlessly pitched as a financial boon, plastic grass has
turned into a pricey time bomb. As more fields hit the end of
their useful lives, the city faces the prospect—and increased
expense—of reconstructing them.
In a random survey of 56 artificial fields this summer, City
Limits discovered 25, or 46 percent, in serious state of disre-
pair, with gaps, tears and holes forming obvious trip hazards.
At least 14 fields had minor damage, but without fixes, their
defects are sure to grow worse.
A Parks Department spokesman says the city has no plans
to replace any artificial turf, though the agency has solicited
bids to swap out two fields in Manhattan for $3.65 million.
13
 THE GROUND GAME
Signs of deterioration at turf fields
he city bought into turf because it
didn’t have the operating budget
to maintain natural grass, so it
borrowed the money instead, is-
suing bonds to finance turf fields
as a capital investment. That’s
why, even in a time of falling tax
revenues and dramatic budget
cuts, the Bloomberg administra-
tion is purchasing more artificial
turf, repeating—and expand-
ing—an expensive and possibly
harmful mistake.
The financial risks grow more obvious as time goes
on. Last year the Parks Department floated a proposal
for $40 million in federal stimulus funds to replace
deteriorated turf. First Deputy Commissioner Liam
Kavanagh looked a little embarrassed when he tried
to explain away the request at a later City Council
hearing, excusing it as “part of a planning exercise”
that was dropped from the city’s official stimulus ap-
plication.
The trouble of rapidly decaying turf may not have
been initially anticipated by the Bloomberg admin-
istration, yet the city has been aware of the problem
since at least 2006—and it kept on buying.
According to a 2006 internal Parks Department
memo, former head of capital projects Amy Freitag
dispatched a team to survey a sampling of fields in
Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens; all of the inspect-
ed turf had been installed only three to five years be-
fore. “Most fields are displaying problems,” the memo
14 A Risky Play
reported back to Freitag, listing nine common defects
ranging from disintegrating fibers and “carpet wrin-
kling” to shredded seams and “playing lines ripped
out completely.”
Two of these fields happened to be the same ones
Israel Arreola now complains about at Flushing
Meadows Corona Park. The 2006 memo pronounced
one of the fields “unrepairable” because of “severe de-
terioration,” and it pegged the price tag for an imme-
diate replacement at $562,500. The other field “can be
repaired,” the memo said, but “will require complete
replacement in about one year.”
Four years later, neither field has been replaced, but
days of reckoning can only be delayed, not avoided.
The warranties of most artificial-turf manufacturers
last for just eight years. While the two fields in Flush-
ing Meadows Corona Park are now nearly nine years
old, the city has no plans to reconstruct them.
On a recent Saturday, water collected in puddles
and undermined the carpet, which was no longer
secured to the ground. Frustrated players picked up
the surface and held it over their heads. The white-
and-green maple leaf logo of the Parks Department
formed a loose and tattered pile at center field.
“We ask the Parks Department for help, and they
don’t respond, so we try to fix the field ourselves,”
explains William Juca, a limousine driver from Mas-
peth, Queens, who heads Master Soccer, a league of
immigrant players over the age of 40. Juca says his
league pays $1,500 a year for a half-day permit and
insurance to play on Saturdays over the course of
the year, and it spends an additional $3,000 on quick
continued on page 19
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
Girls’ soccer coach Bob Sprance
shows how loose the turf is at Flushing
Meadows. The city has argued that
artificial turf allows huge savings on
maintenance costs, but at many parks
the fake surface is proving to be less
durable than hoped.

www.citylimits.org 15
 CITY
STATS
Tour of the Turf
Notes from City Limits' visits to artificial turf fields
1. Williamsbridge
Oval Park Excellent
It's brand new, and heavily used.
Will it hold up?
2. Pelham BAY Park Very Poor
Crumb rubber was everywhere; it hits
your ankles as you walk. Big tears
near the goal. Huge strips of turf could
be lifted. Graffiti and burn marks. Big
folds. But the adjacent grass ballfields
were even worse.
3. St. Mary's Park Good
A small triangle of turf. It is not soft, but
also not damaged.
4. Eugene McCabe Field Fair
Well-used field is worn but in decent
shape, except one large sinkhole on
the east side.
5. Riverside Park Good
Fields in decent shape and repair,
well-used by both baseball and soccer
games on a recent summer evening.
6. Baruch Playground Poor
Two baseball fields with a small
football/soccer area have holes, open
seams, loose carpet and a burn mark.
7. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park
Very poor
Two of the four fields studied are in
ragged shape, with split seams, gaps
and loose carpet; two fields in decent
shape but showing signs of age.
16 A Risky Play
8. Kissena Ballfield Fair
You could smell the rubber in the
heat. A lot of worn patches and
one big burn spot. A small group of
players was using it.
9. Juniper Valley Park Poor
Blades worn down so much the
rubber crumbs show at the surface.
Burn marks. A few places where turf
was loose. But in 95-degree weather,
people were playing on it.
10. Idlewild Park Good
Carpet mashed down near the goals
and at midfield, but no ripples, burn
marks or obvious tears.
11. Parade Ground Mixed
All five fields are in heavy use,
with multiple teams competing for
space. Three were in poor shape,
their blades worn down or off, leav-
ing spots with only the loose rubber
crumbs. Two of the three also have
splits and wrinkles. The two remaining
fields are in good to excellent shape.
12. Leif Ericson Park Excellent
New carpet in immaculate shape, but
on the day we visited, the gates were
padlocked.
13. Fort Hamilton Memorial ParK
Poor
Large combination football/soccer and
baseball fields with torn seams and
bad patches, littered with broken glass.
14. Dyker Beach Park Very poor
All three rubber-infill fields have holes,
split seams, wide gaps and loose turf.
In places, rocks come up through the
broken pads. Blades are completely
worn off in spots, and burn marks mar
the surface.
15. Midland Beach Playground
Excellent
One burn mark and one big divot
at the penalty shot spot, but other-
wise fine. Yet with no trees or fences
or structures around—it abuts the
beach—it gets direct sunlight all day,
making it very hot (and, when we
visited, empty).
16. Bloomingdale Park Good
A couple of ripples in the carpet and
one burn spot. Next door, a grass ball-
field was also in good shape.
STATEN ISLAND
15
16
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
 1

BRONX
2

4
5

MANHATTAN
7
8

9
QUEENS

11

12
BROOKLYN
13
14
10

www.citylimits.org 17
Fields at Riverside Park are in excellent
shape. Bottom: Azael Arturo makes a save
at Thomas Jefferson Park in Manhattan,
where a turf field had to be removed
because of high lead levels.
continued from page 14
fixes with glue and patches—two times as much as
Chalk Talk
the city’s annual maintenance estimate for an artifi-
cial-turf field. “We cannot do the whole thing,” says
Juca, who once asked a private contractor to look into
making temporary repairs to one field. The ballpark
figure came to $50,000. “That’s too much—we’re just
What coaches think of turf
L
a small league,” he says. ike many soccer
The price of a new artificial field has risen steadi- coaches, Nestor Ri-
ly over the past decade. By 2007, synthetic turf was vas loves his artificial
fetching as much as $13 a square foot, almost double turf field because it's always
what the city was spending five years before. When available for games. Youth
worries focused on the toxic chemicals in fields us- soccer leagues typically
ing rubber crumbs from recycled tires, manufactur- play for just four months a
ers scrambled to find new materials—“virgin” rubber, year, but adult immigrant
groups like the one Rivas
oversees like to take the field
as often as possible. On Sun-
days in Red Hook for a doz-
The city’s tab for en years, his league—made
up of mostly Central Ameri-
artificial turf has can immigrants—competed
already surpassed the on a grass field, which in
New York often means dirt.
annual expense budget “The city didn't maintain it,”
of the Parks Department, he recalls. “Nobody wanted
to come. Now everybody
which touts artificial turf wants to play here.”
His players have to deal
as a fiscally prudent with turf temperatures “like
alternative to hiring an oven” on hot summer
days, and a three-inch-high
maintenance workers. wrinkle now runs the en-
tire length of the field. “The
city has to fix that,” he says.
acrylic-coated sand, coal fly ash, walnut and coconut Still, Rivas adds, “This field is
shells—and they hiked their prices for the new prod- much better.”
ucts. The city even returned to buying the old-fash- Others don't like artificial
ioned carpet-style AstroTurf, which now goes for $21 turf, but they're resigned to
a square foot. When the carpet-style field in Chelsea it. “Natural grass is the best
Park gets replaced this year, the cost will be $2.3 mil- thing to play on,” says Rudy
lion, almost twice its original price. Williams, head coach of
The city’s tab for artificial turf has already sur- the Lions' Uprising, an adult
passed the annual expense budget of the Parks De- soccer team of immigrant
partment, which touts artificial turf as a fiscally players from the Caribbean,
prudent alternative to hiring maintenance workers. Africa, and South America.
Today, conditions at four fields in Flushing Meadows Grass is a softer surface and
Corona Park—two artificial turf, two natural—show consequently safer on play-
what happens without maintenance, providing a win- ers' bodies, he says. But he
dow onto the decades-long deprivation of city parks. adds: “There really aren't
Without upkeep, both grass fields have turned to bare enough fields, period. We ac-
and hardened earth; a thin layer of dirt sits uneasily cept whatever we can get.”
on top. Bob Sprance, a coach of girls’ soccer at Forest The Lions' Uprising prac-
Hills High School, picks broken glass off the ground. tices every Tuesday and
www.citylimits.org
Thursday on an artificial
field at Linden Park in East
New York, but they share the
turf with ”five or six” other
soccer and football teams.
“All we have is the 10-yard
line to the goal post,” Wil-
liams says.
His assistant coach, Del-
roy Stamp, also prefers
grass. ”But to maintain a
grass field requires staff,”
he says, pointing to the turf
that was put down with a
running track, lights and
bleachers for $3.1 million in
2005. “They're trying to econ-
omize. From the road it looks
fine, but I don't see anyone
maintain it, so there are cer-
tain parts of the carpet that
are coming up now.
“You're basically on a slab
of concrete,” says Stamp,
who compares the field's
“feel” to that of the surround-
ing running track. ”There's
no field here.”
Over in Williamsburg's
Sternberg Park, two base-
ball fields share the synthet-
ic turf put down for $1.3 mil-
lion almost five years ago.
Holes five inches deep mark
the right-handed batter's
side of each home plate
and the pitching rubbers.
The carpet is coming up at
every base.
“We have people break-
ing their fingers when they
reach for the ball,” says
William Rodriguez of Kids
Against Drugs Baseball, a
league of 5- to 12-year-olds.
“It's crazy. The city just put in
a new dog run [for $380,000],
continued on page 20
19
continued from page 19
and we've been complaining
about this for two years.”
Rodriguez says the Parks
Department told him it's the
contractor's fault, but the con-
tractor blames the city for not
maintaining the field. (The
Parks Department chose not to
comment to City Limits.)
One of the advantages of
synthetic turf is that it won't get
muddy after a rain, but little
league umpire Jose Nieves
complains of both mud and
flooding at Field 6 in Manhat-
tan's East River Park. “If there's
rain, it's like a Jacuzzi at first
base,” he says, noting that an-
other umpire had fainted due
to the turf's high temperature
on a sunny day.
When we caught up with
him one day this summer,
George Angels had just
witnessed an injury on the
shabby synthetic turf in Dyker
Beach Park. “Two hours ago,
my friend, he was running and
he tripped over the patches
and twisted his ankle,” he
says. “It's dangerous.”
The park's three synthetic
turf fields are all marked
by ripped seams, sinkholes,
and large black spots where
the green blades have been
completely worn away. Gaps
in the turf yawn as wide as
eight inches, and rocks come
up through the broken pads.
Angels says he hasn't seen
a Parks Department mainte-
nance worker in the two years
he's played there. The turf lies
alongside three neglected nat-
ural fields where the grass has
been burned away to a crisp
yellow in the sun. The sprin-
kler valves at these fields are
all broken and abandoned
in cracked cement casings,
though Angels notices that the
20 A Risky Play
park's golf course next door is
lush and green.
“Grass is always preferable,”
says W. Dwight Raiford, the
founder of the Harlem Little
League. He knows what it's
like to struggle to find a place
to play. When Raiford and
his wife, Iris, started the little
league in 1989, Harlem's ball-
fields were asphalt lots. He got
a call from William Shea, the
lawyer best known for bring-
ing the Mets to New York.
“He said, ‘Do you need
money?' I said, ‘No, we need
fields,’” Raiford recalled. With
Shea's help, the city built
three diamonds, and the
league grew from 180 chil-
dren to nearly 600. Still, the
fields weren't enough.
In the early ‘90s, Raiford sets
his sights on a blacktopped
playground in Marcus Gar-
vey Park. After years of raising
funds from corporate sponsors
and the city, the grass field
was completed for $300,000,
and the league began to pay
a private service for its mainte-
nance—and to keep a lock on
it. Raiford puts the current cost
of upkeep at between $7,000
and $10,000 a year.
Today the Harlem Little
League uses grass fields in
Jackie Robinson, Holcombe
Rucker and Col. Charles
Young parks. The Young field
is in “horrible shape,” says
Raiford. It's heavily used by
adult and youth leagues, and
four baseball diamonds over-
lap football and soccer fields.
“Those sports are just not com-
patible,” he says. “We wouldn't
mind that field being done in
artificial turf, but it's extremely
expensive. The last quote I got
was $4 million.”
—Patrick Arden
All four of these fields are included in the referees’
boycott. Still, if forced to choose, Sprance would
take the dirt over the artificial turf. “Those fields
are just too dangerous,” he explains.
He quickly adds that he hates making the choice:
“It’s like death—the outcome is the same.” During
practices, managers place orange traffic cones on
the artificial turf to warn players of particularly
perilous spots.
“These men have jobs.
What if they tear their
knees? They're in
danger of permanent
injury—knees, ankles,
heads.”
Sprance walks onto an artificial field between the
end of one soccer game and the start of the next.
“Look here,” he barks, squatting above the carpet.
“See that hole by the goal line? You see that patch
they put in? Now look at the fold.” The fold—a jag-
ged crease at least 2 inches high—extends across
the entire width of the field, creating a trap for pre-
occupied players. “You got three problems right in
front of the goal.”
A worried look comes across Sprance’s face as
he watches the adult leagues that occupy the arti-
ficial-turf fields on Saturdays and Sundays. “These
men have jobs. What if they tear their knees?” he
asks. “They’re in danger of permanent injury—
knees, ankles, heads. They could get concussions.
What I don’t get is, How can the city let people play
on here?”
Another question might be, How did an ad-
ministration that prides itself on financial acumen
dive headlong into a heavy investment in an un-
tested material? And why has it remained stead-
fastly committed to buying more artificial turf,
even when that commitment has meant constantly
trying to cover up possible problems, particularly
those related to public health?
The answers lie in the story of how New York
City became the world’s biggest buyer of fake grass.
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
The city says turf is crucial to
keeping fields in playing shape,
which in turn is important to the
effort to increase fitness.
 Centerfield runs into the soccer
pitch at Riverside Park. Different
sports interact differently with
their playing surfaces. Soccer
plays run on it, baseball infielders
track grounders across it and
football players fall on it—
repeatedly.
22 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
COSTS AND BENEFITS
The economic case for turf
t didn’t immediately look like a mistake.
When the city first made the case, many
agreed: Common sense seemed to dictate
the move to artificial turf.
Months after becoming Bloomberg’s
parks commissioner in 2002, Adrian Be-
nepe announced the expansion of a pilot
program called Green Acres, which had
put 12 artificial fields in parks over the pre-
vious four years, the majority on asphalt
yards. Seven were in Manhattan, where
Benepe had been the borough’s parks chief
under Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“Just the tip of the iceberg,” vowed Benepe during a
2002 City Council budget hearing. “We’re strong be-
lievers, whenever possible, in the use of synthetic turf
for a variety of reasons.”
One of the primary reasons, he said, was durabil-
ity. Turf could hold up under high demand, particu-
larly the punishing play of soccer, and it supposedly
required little to no maintenance. Benepe singled out
the growth of youth soccer and women’s sports as
fueling a greater need for athletic fields, saying that
demand far exceeded what grass could handle.
His boss was a big believer in artificial turf too. In
his 2001 mayoral campaign, Bloomberg promised
to improve parks, and his official biography promi-
nently featured his philanthropic support for “the
construction of new athletic fields at city high schools
throughout the five boroughs.”
Bloomberg had donated $1 million to Take the
Field, a nonprofit that installed 42 artificial-turf fields
at public schools. Take the Field embodied the public-
private partnership model that Bloomberg continues
to find so attractive: Seeded by foundation grants in
1999, the nonprofit persuaded the city to match every
$1 in private donations with $3 in government fund-
ing. It eventually raised $36 million, and taxpayers
chipped in $97 million. The project, which concluded
in 2008, was instrumental in paving the way for 31
additional artificial fields at public schools, bringing
the Department of Education’s total number of turf
fields to 73. “We just don’t have the money for grass,”
the mayor later told reporters.
New York City’s embracing of turf not only reflected
Bloomberg’s faith in technology but also represented
the culmination of a 50-year quest for a manufac-
tured playing surface for city parks and schools. That
www.citylimits.org
mission finds its roots on the Upper West Side, at Co-
lumbia University’s Teachers College, where in 1958
a committee on educational facilities received a $4.5
million grant from the Ford Foundation. The group’s
first white paper tackled the lack of green spaces for
inner-city schools.
“Originally there may have been living lawns and
play fields, but the scuffle of too many feet soon
turned the grass to gravel, the gravel to dirt and
mud,” the report said. The researchers worried that
young people were increasingly out of shape, par-
ticularly city kids: “Whoever invents for rooftop and
playground a material that looks like grass and acts
like grass, a turf-like substance on which a ball will
bounce and a child will not, a covering that brings a
slice of spring in Scarsdale
to 14th Street in April, will
have struck a blow for sta-
bility in the big city.” BEYOND BUDGETS
The report inspired three
Comprehensive coverage
scientists at Monsanto to
of city government
develop the first artificial-
www.citylimits.org/government
turf product, ChemGrass,
and that material evolved
into AstroTurf, the nylon
carpet laid down at the
Houston Astrodome in 1966 and the chief compo-
nent for millions of welcome mats. Though the city’s
first artificial athletic fields were similar nylon car-
pets, by 2002 Benepe was no longer interested in As-
troTurf. He had become enamored of the new breed
of artificial fields developed in the mid-1990s dubbed
“synthetic turf.”
Synthetic turf was designed to more closely repli-
cate real grass, with thin, green plastic strips acting as
blades attached to a rubber backing and suspended
in a field of loose rubber crumbs posing as dirt. The
rubber came from ground-up car and truck tires. The
new product presented a softer, more forgiving sur-
face than the old AstroTurf, and it was cheaper too.
While the city’s first nylon-carpet field in Chelsea
Park cost $1.3 million in 1998, a rubber-infill synthet-
ic-turf field could be had for $700,000 to $1 million,
Benepe told the Council. Resodding a grass field cost
far less, between $500,000 and $650,000, but grass
fields turn into “dust bowls” and need to be replaced
every three years, according to Benepe.
Additional savings were supposed to come from
continued on page 26
23
Missing Moses’ Muscle
The politics of parks
A
s spring turned
to summer and
the City Council
weighed Mayor Bloom-
berg's proposed budget for
this year, protests erupted
over some of the cuts rec-
ommended by City Hall.
Pols rallied to stop the clo-
sure of 20 fire companies.
Day care workers facing
layoffs marched across the
Brooklyn Bridge. One ad-
vocacy group went to fed-
eral court to block cuts to
AIDS housing services. But
there was little furor over
the 13 percent cut that the
mayor proposed for the
Department of Parks and
Recreation—the largest re-
duction faced by any ma-
jor agency.
No news there. Despite
controlling 19.5 percent of
the city's land, the Parks
Department has relatively
little political pull, and
that translates into disap-
pointment every budget
season. Bloomberg has in-
creased the Parks budget
by an inflation-adjusted 13
percent during his time in
office, but that's failed to
keep pace with the overall
city budget, which grew 24
percent. The result is that
Parks, which by some ac-
counts garnered 1.4 per-
cent of the budget in the
1960s, will get only 0.44
percent of city spending
in fiscal 2011. Among the
10 largest U.S. cities, only
Philadelphia and Houston
24 A Risky Play
spend less per capita on
parks than New York does.
The number of full-time
employees at the depart-
ment is 1,000 less today
than it was in 1987.
The modern Parks De-
partment dates back to
1934, when Mayor Fiorello
La Guardia unified the
then separate borough
parks systems under one
agency and named Rob-
ert Moses its commissioner.
Moses, the power broker. Photo courtesy Brooklyn College.
Moses would rule for 26
years, more than doubling
the acreage of the system,
increasing the number of
playgrounds from 199 to
777, establishing pools,
beaches and parkways.
Moses' fearsome behind-
the-scenes power—he si-
multaneously ran several
state and city entities—bol-
stered the parks.
“Politically it was part of
the Moses empire,” says
Gordon Davis, an attorney
who served as Parks com-
missioner under Mayor Ed
Koch. “So you didn't fuck
with the Parks Depart-
ment.” But it wasn't just
Moses' political heft that
helped build the modern
park system. His singular
skill at attracting federal
money, at a time when New
Deal work relief programs
were dispensing billions,
positioned New York's parks
as prime beneficiaries of
Washington's largesse.
Moses' stewardship of
Parks was not without crit-
ics, who valued quality over
quantity and thought his
designs for park space and
equipment were dreary
and unimaginative. When
John Lindsay became
mayor and appointed
Thomas Hoving commis-
sioner, creativity in using
parks took precedence
over creating new ones
(although Lindsay's team
did originate “vest pocket”
parks to provide smaller
open spaces in neighbor-
hoods where bigger plots
of land were unavailable).
Cultural events—plays, con-
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
certs and “be-ins” arrived in
city parks. But Hoving left the
job after a little more than
a year, and over the next
decade, the department
had six commissioners.
Meanwhile, city finances
deteriorated to the point
that parks capital projects
had to be scrapped in 1978
because the city was shut
out of the bond market.
After Koch became may-
or, several people turned
down the Parks job, says
Davis, who eventually ac-
cepted it. Davis built on
what was left; for instance,
he changed the construc-
tion of park benches when
he noticed which design
had survived a blitz of van-
dalism in Red Hook Park.
He took to the airways
to restore confidence in
parks. But money was still
the toughest battle. “The
fight for resources was a
real full-time effort that al-
ways involved a little she-
nanigans on my part,” Da-
vis recalls. This included
an effort one year to retain
seasonal employees that
he was supposed to fire.
Budget officials caught his
attempted sleight of hand
and unsuccessfully pressed
Koch to fire the commish.
When Henry Stern took
over as commissioner in
1983, he had buttons print-
ed up. “I had a goal of 1
percent of the city budget
[for Parks] by the millen-
nium,” Stern says. “I gave
 CITY
STATS
A Slice Of Green
Parks' share of the city budget
1980-2011
1%
.90%
.80%
.70%
.60%
.50%
.40%
.30%
.20%
.10%
.00%
’80 ’82 ’84
them 17 years. However, it
was not to be.”
But, funding did at least
stabilize during the Koch
administration. When the
1990 recession hit, howev-
er, Mayor Dinkins slashed
Parks funding 22 percent, a
devastating cut from which
the Parks Department's
head count has never re-
covered. “Boom, as soon I
got in, the budget was cut,”
recalls Betsy Gotbaum, Din-
kins' Parks commissioner.
“I was not only surprised,
I was terribly upset. I had
fights with the mayor. But I
would never get any satis-
faction out of that.”
To deal with the budget
blow, Gotbaum cut costs—
and earned the enmity of
unions—by laying off la-
borers, arguing that their
job titles were too inflex-
www.citylimits.org
’86 ’88 ’90 ’92
ible. On the revenue side,
Gotbaum revived the City
Parks Foundation to at-
tract private money to
parks outside of Central
Park; one $6 million grant
helped restore the city's
natural forests.
Stern retook the depart-
ment's helm during the
Giuliani era. Under both
Koch and Giuliani, Stern
says, funding “was always
a problem.” He adds: “Both
their priorities were pub-
lic safety and education,
which I thought was a mis-
take, because you'd think
that a little money for parks
wouldn't have hurt public
safety or education.” Dur-
ing Stern's second stint, at
least by the department's
own rating system, the per-
centage of parks rated ac-
ceptable rose from 43 per-
’94 ’96 ’98 ’00 ’02 ’04
cent in 1995 to 88 percent
in 2001. Second only to Mo-
ses in total tenure as Parks
chief, Stern created over
2,000 Greenstreets, erected
2,500 historic signs and—
with the Central Park Con-
servancy—oversaw the
flagship park's recovery.
During the Bloomberg
administration, under com-
missioner Adrian Benepe,
the Parks budget increased
steadily until 2009, when
it composed 0.54 percent
of the city's budget—its
highest share since 1991.
That share has since fallen
slightly.
A citywide constituency
for parks has not been
visible in memory. Parks
advocates think that can
change, although it might
require a mind-set that's
never really existed in a
Source: IBO.
Note that
the share of
the budget
is measured
here in tenths
’06 ’08 ’10 of a percent.
city where, for 26 years,
Moses was the only advo-
cate parks needed and,
for the past three decades,
a fiscal-crisis mentality has
pushed parks to the back
of the line. “I think there's a
huge case for more spend-
ing and a chance for it, but
it will take a very big effort
to build support for that,”
says Lee Stuart, executive
director of New Yorkers
for Parks. Looking at ex-
panding the city's revenue
stream is also important,
Stuart says—not just how
much revenue comes in,
but where it goes: Each
year the parks generate
tens of millions in income
that goes not to the parks
system but into the city's
general fund.
—Jarrett Murphy
25
 CITY
Sticker Shock
Is turf cheaper than grass?
STATS
$2,600 $2,740 $1,780

$1,440
Costs in $1,400 $1,415
thousands $1,440 $1,450
over a
10-year
period
GRASS

TURF

GRASS

TURF

GRASS

TURF

GRASS

TURF
The city has said that a turf What's more, a grass field But a properly maintained Disposing of a rubber-
Install/Replacement

Maintanence

Durability

Disposal
field could cost as little as requires $14,000 a year in grass field might last as infill synthetic turf field
$700,000, while grass might maintenance, the Parks long as 12 years. Here, can be expensive; one
cost as much as $650,000. Department says, while a we assume it lasts five estimate is that it runs
And grass might need to turf field might need only years, requiring just one $365,000 to get rid of one.
be replaced every three $1,500. replacement during the If you add in that cost,
years, while turf lasts for 10-year period, just like turf fields don't appear to
eight or more. In a 10-year the turf field. Meanwhile, be money savers at all.
period, a grass field might a turf field might need
be installed four times, a turf more like $5,000 a year in
field only twice. maintenance to last.

continued from page 23
maintenance. Currently, the Parks Department puts the an-
nual bill for the upkeep of one grass athletic field at $14,000,
including equipment and staffing. But on closer inspection,
the artificial surface looks less attractive. In response to re-
peated questions, the agency couldn’t name a single grass
field on which it’s ever spent as much as $14,000 a year on
maintenance, and it couldn't name any grass fields it's re-
placed after three years. There’s no need to replace grass
that’s properly maintained; the Central Park Conservancy, a
public-private partnership, hasn’t replaced the grass fields of
the Great Lawn since they were reconstructed 12 years ago.
Over a 10-year period, the cost of natural grass, by Be-
nepe’s 2002 reckoning, would have run between $640,000
and $790,000 with proper maintenance and no replacement,
compared with $700,000 to $1 million for the artificial turf
with no repairs. An examination of actual grass and turf con-
tracts suggests even greater savings are possible. In 2001 and
2002, the city paid for both grass and artificial-turf fields at
Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The price per square foot
was 60 cents for sod and compost compared with $7.90 for
synthetic turf. The sod and compost for two grass fields went
for $112,305, while the two artificial-turf fields cost $987,500.
Even if the sod was replaced every three years—it’s never been
replaced—the savings on a constant-dollar basis would have
been $370,585. The grass contract also included 62,000 extra
square feet of sod, just shy of enough for a third soccer field.
But these calculations assume the grass fields would be
maintained, of course, and maintenance requires work-
ers. The Parks Department includes the cost of staffing in
its annual $14,000 figure for the upkeep of one grass field,
even though the agency doesn’t have the staff for maintain-
ing grass. The Parks Department has never recovered from
the drastic cuts in its workforce beginning during the fiscal
crisis of the 1970s, and three decades of budget crises have
left parks and school facilities in bad shape. Bloomberg has
made no secret of his reluctance to hire maintenance work-
ers: His proposed budget this year would have sent the Parks
Department’s full-time workforce below 3,000—almost half
the number employed 20 years ago. The final budget does
not cut the agency’s funding as deeply as the mayor pro-
posed, but it does strip $35 million from Parks.
In 20 years of post-fiscal-crisis life, the city’s natural-turf
ball fields—totaling 654 last year—sometimes got their grass
cut by roving crews that juggle other responsibilities, but of-
ten no one cuts the grass. Before the city installed an artifi-
cial-turf field at St. Michael’s Park in Queens, for example,
residents grumbled that their playing field was far from a
dust bowl: The grass measured 21 inches high. The situation
got so bad that some groups decided to take matters into
their own hands, paying to fix up park ball fields and then
slapping padlocks on their gates to keep the public out.
Under separate agreements with the city, many private
groups have taken over public ball fields. In 2005, 64 athletic
fields were padlocked in 46 parks. (The Parks Department
declined to update these numbers.) Schools and leagues
complain about a shortage of fields, though that problem
may depend on where you live and what you’re forced to

26 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4

play on. Twenty private schools in Manhattan were willing
to pay the city and the Randall’s Island Sports Foundation
$2.6 million a year over two decades for exclusive afternoon
use of park athletic fields. Of that annual payment, $400,000
would have covered maintenance. A judge twice struck
down the controversial pay-to-play deal after a lawsuit was
filed by East Harlem residents and public school parents,
but the city went ahead and built more than 60 fields with-
out the private money. A June trip out to the park situated
in the middle of the East River found many of the fields
sitting empty in mid-afternoon, including all 11 made of
artificial turf.
What the city actually
spends on artificial-turf
maintenance remains a
mystery, but repairs are
wildly inconsistent.
The Central Park Conservancy employs 26 ball field main-
tenance workers for 26 grass fields, but city parks don’t have
a single dedicated ball field maintenance crew. “We refuse to
hire people to maintain our fields,” says Geoffrey Croft of the
nonprofit watchdog NYC Park Advocates. He calls the city’s
case for putting artificial turf on its credit card the “Wimpy
defense,” referring to the lackadaisical character in the car-
toon Popeye: “’I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburg-
er today.’ That’s how the city almost went bankrupt in the
1970s. But when it comes to athletic fields, you could hire
human beings to maintain grass, and it would cost much less
than artificial turf.”
Yet the myth of the maintenance-free field exerted a pow-
erful pull within the Parks Department. Artificial turf
looked like a solution to the agency’s lack of resources.
“There is very little maintenance cost for a synthetic-turf
field,” said Keith Kerman, the Parks Department’s chief of
operations, in 2006. He was trying to justify the much great-
er initial cost of a turf field—then averaging about $1.3 mil-
lion—compared with a grass one. “These fields are alleviating
maintenance concerns and letting us dedicate maintenance
costs elsewhere. They’re less expensive in total, and most of
the cost is capital. The truth is, if we got additional resources,
why wouldn’t you want to put them elsewhere anyway?”
The truth is, artificial turf also requires maintenance. In
testimony before the City Council in 2007, Benepe estimat-
ed the yearly maintenance cost for an artificial-turf field to
www.citylimits.org
be $1,500, but earlier studies by Michigan State University
and Massachusetts’ Springfield College put the annual main-
tenance bill for a synthetic-turf field at $17,720 and $5,000,
respectively. The size of each school and the consequent use
of each field could account for the discrepancy, yet both con-
cluded that when installation and maintenance costs were
combined, natural grass cost much less than artificial turf.
Michigan State University discovered that a synthetic-turf
field also needed equipment and materials that could run at
least an additional $8,250.
What’s more, turf manufacturers can void warranties in
the absence of regular maintenance. In a review of Parks De-
partment purchasing contracts for synthetic turf, City Limits
found warranties that required biweekly brushing, sweeping
and watering. Brushes should contain no metal because bro-
ken bristles or fibers can lodge in the turf and create a safety
hazard. Dirt and litter must be removed on a regular basis,
though mechanical sweepers can’t be used when the temper-
ature climbs above 90 degrees. Drains have to be cleaned pe-
riodically, and ice should be removed with chemicals, with
any residue flushed off as soon as weather permits. Weeds
should be stopped from poking through some surfaces by
spraying the underlying asphalt with a grass killer every two
years. Owners are bound to “vigorously enforce” a smoking
ban, and idling vehicles should be kept off the synthetic turf
to prevent the surface from melting. Equipment must never
have engine fluids changed on the turf, and the manufactur-
er’s obligations are conditioned on the purchaser’s making
“all minor repairs promptly.”
What the city actually spends on artificial-turf mainte-
nance remains a mystery, but repairs are wildly inconsistent.
Soccer players in Brooklyn’s Dyker Beach Park said they
have never seen a Parks Department worker maintain the
turf there, and the condition of the three artificial fields lent
credence to their claims. The green plastic blades had been
worn off in spots, leaving just the rubber crumbs. Lines were
missing, and the surface was loose and bunching. Two of the
fields had gaps as wide as 8 inches, where the turf had bro-
ken down completely and rocks were coming up from the
dirt under the pad. The heat was oppressive, forcing players
to periodically pour water on their shoes.
Other fields appeared to get fixed on a catch-as-catch-can
basis. A year ago, Manhattan’s East River Park had an artifi-
cial-turf field in tatters, with opened seams and ripped-out
lines. The carpet could be lifted off the ground. On a recent
visit, however, the field had been patched and stitched togeth-
er again, though its splits consequently reopened, and the
field developed several new tears. It retained two “sinkholes,”
or depressions, from before the time of the fixes. Even when
repairs are made, there’s no telling how long they’ll stick.
27
28 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
 The massive grass field at Van
Cortlandt Park looks dried
out here, but is undergoing
renovation. Natural fields require
maintenance, but if properly
maintained, might be as or more
durable than turf.

www.citylimits.org 29
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Little league umpire Jose
Nieves shows what happens
when it rains at East River
Park. Turf is supposed to drain
better than grass, and some
turf fields do, but pooling of
water is not uncommon.
THE CITY ON DEFENSE
Dismissing questions about health
ack in the spring of 2002, as Benepe was
extolling the benefits of Green Acres,
Brigham Young University installed a
synthetic-turf athletic field next to a nat-
ural-grass one, and football coaches im-
mediately noticed the artificial turf was
much hotter than the grass—one coach’s
feet blistered through his tennis shoes.
On a warm day that June, two BYU
professors monitored the fields from 7
a.m. to 7 p.m. and discovered the syn-
thetic turf ’s rubber and plastic absorbed
more of the sun’s heat than the grass did. Synthetic turf
reached extraordinary temperatures that were 37 degrees
hotter than asphalt and 86.5 degrees hotter than natural
turf. When the air temperature hovered around 81 degrees,
the turf averaged 117 degrees. When the air temperature
reached 98 degrees, the turf clocked in at a scorching 200
degrees. The researchers found the field would cool down
when doused with water, but the effects were short-lived:
Within 20 minutes, the shocking heat returned. Far from of-
fering a surface that would combat obesity by being available
at all times, synthetic turf got so hot, these findings suggest-
ed, that it could actually discourage play during the warmer
months, when demand was sure to be at its highest.
That same year, doctors were cataloging injuries common
to synthetic turf, including heat exhaustion. Nationwide,
heat stress has been blamed in the deaths of about 30 high
school football players during the last decade, though it's not
clear how many were playing on turf. Athletes had long com-
plained about the old carpet-style AstroTurf, with 87 percent
of NFL players saying they preferred grass. Synthetic turf
was promoted as a safer alternative, but doctors were seeing
the same kinds of injuries, including ankle sprains, ligament
tears and “turf burns,” skin abrasions due to athletes sliding
on the surface.
These burns, researchers believed, exposed the players to
infection, which could be passed among teammates in a va-
riety of ways, from sharing towels to using the same locker
room facilities. One scientist at the University of Missouri
called artificial turf a breeding ground for harmful bacteria,
leading turf manufacturers to market pretreated antimicro-
bial fields as well as new chemical solutions and equipment
to clean surfaces of sweat, spit and blood. “Regular mainte-
nance of artificial turf is necessary to keep playing surfaces
clean,” warned the turf management company Synpro.
In 2003, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention blamed turf burn for providing an entry point for
www.citylimits.org
the antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA. The
CDC found eight cases of MRSA in five players on the St.
Louis Rams, and skin scrapings from those infected pointed
to turf burn as the cause. After a St. Louis game that season
against San Francisco, some players on the 49ers were also
diagnosed with MRSA.
Artificial turf ended up playing a prominent role in May-
or Bloomberg’s PlaNYC program which, among other
things, called for turning schoolyards into parks. The city’s
argument for turf has often stressed its environmental attri-
butes. In 2007, Benepe attacked turf ’s critics on WNYC’s The
Brian Lehrer Show.
“There’s a phony environmentalism that says synthetic
turf is somehow much worse than so-called real grass,” Be-
nepe said, claiming that natural-grass fields require “lots
of chemicals” and “fossil-fuel-burning machines” to mow
them. The Parks Department, in fact, has 843 mowers, of
which just one is electric.
“These synthetic fields use recycled tires,” Benepe bragged.
A single soccer field recycled 27,000 automobile tires. “I
think environmentalists need to walk the walk and talk the
talk, and synthetic-turf fields really just make sense for in-
ner-city sports.”
The environmental claims were surprisingly common
for a product drawn from scrap tires. FieldTurf Tarkett, the
world’s largest installer of artificial turf, told organizations
that its reused-rubber content could help them earn the
necessary points for construction projects to be certified as
green by the U.S. Green Building Council.
The Parks Department had long claimed that artificial turf
was mostly replacing asphalt lots. But of the Parks Depart-
ment’s total 111 artificial-turf fields as of early last year, 39
had gone down on asphalt, and 72 replaced grass.
The loss of grass bothered Bill Crain, a developmental
psychologist at the City University of New York, because he
believed nature is essential for city dwellers. “Children need
contact with plants and trees to develop a sense of calm,” he
explained, citing studies that showed attention-deficit disor-
ders were reduced after kids spent time in nature.
He had once collected 600 signatures on an anti-turf peti-
tion, but he wasn’t a firebrand. A soft-spoken professor and
the author of two books on childhood development, Crain
had a philosophical bent, quoting the maxims of Romantic
writers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His opposition to turf
was purely professional, he said, until a sense of urgency
grabbed him when, during an April 2006 stroll in Riverside
33
Park, he came upon four new athletic fields.
From a distance, the 4-acre swath looked lush and green,
but a closer inspection of the soccer field at 107th Street re-
vealed bright plastic strips, almost like Easter basket grass,
poking out of a black sea of rubber crumbs.
“These granules are loose,” Crain said, as he bent to pick
up a handful of the rubber pellets. Leaning against a fence
was Deborah Peretz, a mother of two who lived nearby. Her
children liked the new soccer field, laughing as they ran on
the springy surface, but Peretz had concerns about the ac-
rid scent. “You can smell the rubber,” she told Crain. The
crumbs came home in her son’s shoes and pockets. “I find
them everywhere.”
Crain was startled. Scrap tires are a dirty business, he
knew, and their disposal is strictly regulated. If they catch
on fire, the blaze emits toxins and is difficult to extinguish; a
1983 tire fire in Virginia burned for nine months, polluting
the air and groundwater.
“I thought, my goodness,” Crain recalled, “her son is
carrying around these rubber crumbs, and these rubber
crumbs are shredded from old tires, so children are
probably playing on all kinds of toxic chemicals.”
“I thought, my goodness,” Crain recalled, “her son is car-
rying around these rubber crumbs, and these rubber crumbs
are shredded from old tires, so children are probably playing
on all kinds of toxic chemicals.”
He decided to pay for a toxicology test, collecting a sample
of the rubber crumbs in a juice glass and sending it to a lab
at Rutgers University. The lab’s chief was Junfeng Zhang,
chair of the department of environmental health and associ-
ate dean at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New
Jersey. Zhang found the crumbs did indeed contain toxins,
including metals like lead and chemicals linked to lung,
stomach and skin cancer.
The rubber had six polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs)—the carcinogenic byproducts of burning fuel—at
levels above New York state safety limits for soil. The PAH
benzo(a)pyrene—commonly found in coal tar and cigarette
smoke—suppresses cell growth and causes developmental
delays: It was in a concentration eight times over the state
limit. “If this were dirt,” Crain claimed, “they’d declare the
land contaminated.”
34 A Risky Play
Crain wrote a letter to Benepe. The turf contained tox-
ins, the letter said, and Crain and Zhang wanted to deter-
mine whether users could be affected. New tests at Rutgers
would employ “advanced laboratory procedures” to find out
whether the chemicals could be inhaled, ingested or taken in
through skin contact. Crain asked for the city’s permission
to gather “about two handfuls of rubber pellets that are loose
on the surface” from one artificial-turf field in each borough.
Crain and Zhang had already applied for a grant to perform
the new tests, but they needed the city’s OK to have a shot at
getting any money. “It is quite possible that there is no real-
istic risk,” Crain wrote.
The city was busy rolling out more turf fields. Parks now
had about 40 similar rubber-infill fields, practically all of
them put down during Bloomberg’s first term, and that
number would double in just a year’s time. But Benepe didn’t
mention the city’s geometrically growing investment in turf
when he refused Crain’s request. Instead, he faulted Zhang’s
method of testing, replying that any samples taken from a
park would be “compromised” by the “surrounding envi-
ronment.” Cities are dirty, Benepe explained, and the state’s
soil contamination levels were “not an appropriate point of
comparison” because “they are based on conditions found in
rural areas.”
“He’s just trying to come up with arguments to keep us
from going ahead,” Crain thought at the time. “Cancer is
cancer. What difference does it make whether you’re in a ru-
ral or urban area?” Crain wrote again to Benepe, explaining
that the rubber would be cleaned prior to testing. He never
received a reply.
He decided to get the word out. In September 2006, the
article “Hazardous Chemicals in Synthetic Turf ” went up on
a New Jersey environmental activist’s website called Rachel’s
Democracy & Health News. The publisher was Peter
Montague, a 68-year-old former professor of planning who
worked for Greenpeace and ran a hazardous-waste research
program at Princeton University.
Though Crain and Zhang’s paper was informal, bypass-
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
Clockwise from top left: New York's park system encompasses 2,000,000 park trees
Sam Schiffer makes a
catch at East River Park,
∙ 600,000 street trees ∙ 29,000 acres ∙ 2,400 greenstreet sites ∙ 1,800
Victor Coto flies a Kite at parks ∙ 1,000 playgrounds ∙ 800 athletic fields ∙ 800 historical markers
Oval Park in the Bronx,
and monuments ∙ 600 comfort stations ∙ 550 tennis courts ∙ 54
Craig Mouro takes in
the sun at Pelham Park, outdoor swimming pools ∙ 30 recreational centers ∙ 23 historic house
Hector Rodriguez’s
museums ∙ 17 nature centers ∙ 15 marinas ∙ 14 miles of beaches
chopper gets airborne at
Van Cortlandt and bets ∙ 13 golf courses ∙ 13 field houses ∙ 12 indoor swimming pools
are on at Dyker Beach. ∙ 7 community centers ∙ 6 ice rinks ∙ 5 stadiums ∙ 4 zoos

www.citylimits.org 35

Park People
The Parks Department's headcount is still
recovering from cuts in the early 1990's
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
’80 ’83 ’86 ’89 ’92 ’95 ’98 ’01 ’04 ’07
ing the rigors of peer review, it immediately attracted
attention, seeding grassroots movements against ar-
tificial turf in states from Connecticut to California.
It joined a growing international chorus of concerns
about synthetic turf. The Norwegian Institute of Pub-
lic Health had already prepared an assessment of
“health risks for football players” on turf pitches, and
it shared the concerns of Crain and Zhang. A subse-
quent meeting brought together public health officials
from other European countries to discuss turf. While
everyone at the symposium agreed that more research
was needed, some thought it irresponsible to wait be-
fore taking action. Italy’s minister of health went so far
as to propose an outright ban, labeling rubber-infill
fields a “potential carcinogen.”
Yet these developments received scant notice in the
U.S., even in New York City, which had become the
largest municipal purchaser of turf. After a story on
Crain appeared in the daily newspaper Metro New
York, the city’s Parks Department referred reporters to
a pair of different studies exonerating turf: One looked
at the carcinogenic dangers of barbecues—PAHs can
be formed in the cooking of meat—while the other
was funded by the Tire Recycling Management Asso-
ciation of Alberta, Canada.
There simply wasn’t much research on the new breed
of artificial turf. The European studies raised concerns
but were also inconclusive. Critics noted that cancers
36 A Risky Play
CITY
STATS
Parks Actual
Full-Time Employees
If Parks' Workforce
Had Followed Overall
City Government Trend
Source: IBO
caused by environmental factors can take years or
even decades to show up, while turf proponents dis-
missed the early examinations as phony science.
Crain knew he lacked proof to reach any conclusion,
so he wrote another letter, this time to the city’s Health
Department, asking for help to conduct more tests. “It
seemed to me, as a naive citizen, that this would be a
public health issue,” he said, but the agency referred
him back to Benepe. “They just passed the buck,” Crain
complained. He then phoned Public Advocate Betsy
Gotbaum, and an aide in her office was interested.
As the city’s Parks commissioner from 1990 to ’94,
Gotbaum had overseen massive layoffs due to a dra-
matic budget cut by the Dinkins administration. Now
as the city’s public advocate, she decided to lobby the
agency on Crain’s behalf.
“We couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t let him
test it,” Gotbaum told me last year, just before leaving
office. She had arguments with Benepe, her onetime
underling. “‘Why won’t you test?’ I’d ask, and he’d say,
‘We don’t see the need for testing, and we don’t have
the money for it.’” (Attempts to talk to Benepe about
these discussions have been unsuccessful.)
The city had certainly spent a lot of money on ar-
tificial turf—more than $150 million up to that
point—and the need to test seemed obvious to Got-
baum: “Until we know it’s safe, we shouldn’t be pour-
ing hundreds of new fields.” Yet the safety of synthetic
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
turf was vouched for not only
by Benepe, she said, but also by
Thomas Frieden, the city’s health
commissioner. Frieden’s opinion
carried weight. A medical doctor
known for his aggressive public
health agenda, Frieden was the
author of the city’s smoking ban
and rules to post calories at fast-
food restaurants. He now heads
the CDC. “Tom Frieden said
there’s no problem,” Gotbaum
remembered. (Calls to Frieden
were not returned.)
Gotbaum still didn’t see the
harm in testing the turf, believing
it would at least quell the grow-
ing fears of park users. Benepe
accused her of fueling a panic,
she said. “We actually had a fight
about that too. Adrian told me,
‘By your saying that there may be
a problem, you’re going to scare
off people, and childhood obesity
will increase,’” Gotbaum recalled,
unconvinced. “What was the big
deal about testing?”
She decided to find the money
for Crain’s test, approaching the
New York Community Trust in
early 2007. The trust came up
with $100,000 for the testing of
artificial turf in city parks. Not
even a year after Crain’s initial
test, the number of artificial fields
in parks had jumped to nearly 80.
By this time, Gotbaum had
started to develop a “cynical little
theory” about the city’s opposi-
tion to testing: “They knew that if
[tests] came up with a lot of tox-
icity, they’d probably have to rip
up all the fields, and the thought
of that was horrific. I mean, if I
were still the parks commission-
er, I’d find it horrific too. You’re
talking about hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars.”
When Gotbaum returned
to Benepe with the grant, he
brought in the Health Depart-
ment’s assistant commissioner
of environmental disease, Nancy
www.citylimits.org
Healthy
Skepticism
T
he sudden boom in synthetic
turf left a lot of unanswered
questions about its potential
health and environmental effects as
well as its impact on injuries. While al-
ternatives to rubber infill were meant
to alleviate many turf concerns, they
have also presented new questions.
Crumbs from shredded tires contain
49 chemicals that can be
released, according to a 2007
study by the California Office of En-
vironmental Health Hazard Assess-
ment, but it’s not a uniform product
because manufacturers use different
quantities of vulcanizing agents, fill-
ers and plasticizers. Some tire con-
taminants may be picked up from
roads. This is one reason why tests re-
veal different fields containing differ-
ent chemicals in different amounts.
In a hand-wipe experiment, the Cali-
fornia study calculated the cancer
risk from one-time ingestion of chry-
sene, a suspected carcinogen found
in tire rubber, to be 2.9 in 1 million,
slightly higher than the di minimis
risk threshold of 1 in 1 million.
In 2007, the nonprofit group Envi-
ronment and Human Health, Inc.,
commissioned a study from the Con-
necticut Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion, which found 25 chemicals
in crumb rubber that could
be released into the air or
groundwater. The leaked draft
of the city’s turf literature review men-
tioned one study that hypothesized
high temperatures could trigger
the release of toxic gases. “Inhala-
tion,” the report said, may be a “pri-
mary route of exposure for contact
to chemicals in crumb rubber,” and
the “potential for exposure” is greater
What we know and
don’t about turf fields
in children than adults. In New York
City, temperatures at turf fields have
reportedly been measured as high
as 171 degrees. New alterna-
tive materials were supposed to re-
duce the heat, but a 2007 study by
the French Agency for Environment
and Energy Management said the
emissions from “virgin rubber” were
greater than from fields of shred-
ded tires, though it also discounted
the health risks associated with in-
halation. Connecticut released a
study in July showing no elevated
inhalation risk, though it noted only
five fields were sampled and it rec-
ommended better ventilation for
indoor fields. The report did not
measure dermal or ingestion risks.
42 states restrict plac-
At least
ing old tires in landfills. This
has added to the expense of disposal
of turf fields. Five years ago the Sports
Turf Managers Association put the
price for removal and disposal at
$1.75 to $2.25 per square foot. In May
a town in British Columbia, Canada,
put the cost of removing one synthetic
turf field at $365,000.
A 2007 issue of The British Journal of
Sports Medicine reported no dif-
ferences in the type or se-
verity of injuries among soc-
cer teams playing on grass
or synthetic turf. But a five-year
study of football injuries among high
school teams, in a 2004 issue of The
American Journal of Sports Medicine,
showed 10 percent more injuries on
synthetic turf than grass, though the
risk of concussion was slightly greater
on grass.
—Patrick Arden
37
 CUNY professor and turf critic
Bill Crain holds the tiny rubber
crumbs that form the "dirt" in
most of the city’s turf fields.

38 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4

Clark, a certified industrial hygienist. Clark said the
turf contaminants most likely came from an outside
source, so she insisted that Crain and Zhang first col-
lect rubber crumbs from an artificial-turf field in an-
other town.
In the summer of 2007, Crain was contacted by
three mothers in Westport, Conn., who were con-
cerned about turf. On Crain’s behalf, the women
approached Westport’s parks director, who donated
rubber samples from the town’s new artificial-turf
field. Crain brought the samples back to New York
and waited for the go-ahead.
The wait dragged on. Gotbaum asked about the de-
lay at a meeting with officials from the Health and
Parks departments, including Clark and Liam Kava-
nagh. The officials began to slam Crain. “They called
him a lunatic,” Gotbaum said.
Their vehemence surprised her. But the more they
talked, she said, the more they seemed to be trying to
back out of the agreement. “It was obvious they didn’t
want to test.”
The insults then turned to Zhang. It’s unclear
whether city health officials knew that Zhang had
done environmental testing for the state of New Jer-
sey, or that he'd worked with the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. “They completely deni-
grated the manner in which he did his tests,” Got-
baum said. “They talked about him bubbling water
and lighting the stuff on fire to see what came out.
They kept saying, ‘We’re scientists—we know.’”
Gotbaum asked Clark to speak directly to Zhang
and Crain, and a telephone interview was scheduled.
It didn’t go well. “She obviously had her mind made
up,” claimed Crain, who said they were told the po-
tential health risks had to be weighed against the
need to prevent obesity.
Crain and Zhang asked the city to stick to the orig-
inal bargain, but by then they had been painted as
“zealots,” Gotbaum said. At the end of the summer of
2007, she proposed a compromise, freezing out the
pair in order to get a test done by another party. The
Parks Department agreed; the Health Department
would oversee the testing.
But even with the money in hand, the Health
Department was in no hurry to test the turf. It spent
half of the grant—$50,000—on an Internet literature
review, collecting the findings from previous studies.
The report was prepared by TRC Companies, an
engineering and construction management company
based in Lowell, Mass.
In her meetings with the Health and Parks
departments and the New York Community
Trust, Gotbaum was the only person who
www.citylimits.org
objected to the literature review: “I didn’t think
it would solve our problem.”
Months passed with no sign of the literature re-
view. But a lot happened in that time, as the debate
progressed about the potential health hazards of ar-
tificial turf using recycled tires. The discussion took
place against the backdrop of an unprecedented turf
boom: More than 850 synthetic fields had been in-
stalled nationwide in the previous year alone.
Legislators in California, Connecticut and New
York were considering six-month moratoriums on
turf purchases while their states paid for research
into the rubber infill. Some public health experts
backed the breather. “It’s a reasonable step while
we wait for more and better information,” said
pediatrician and epidemiologist Dr. Philip Land-
rigan. An internationally recognized authority on
environmental threats to
children, Landrigan chairs
the department of preven-
tive medicine at Manhat- PICS OF PARKS
tan’s Mount Sinai School
of Medicine. See more images of the
parks system
A panic set in among
www.citylimits.org/parks
youth soccer leagues, which
pushed to get new synthetic
fields before any possible
clampdown. Coaches and
many parents complained that their kids couldn’t
compete against rivals who already had synthetic
turf. A fight broke out over the fate of grass playing
fields at Battery Park City, where the natural turf had
been maintained organically without the use of pesti-
cides or herbicides. The fields were well used, accom-
modating 775 permits a year, but they were closed in
the winter and after rains. Under pressure from soc-
cer leagues, the Battery Park City Authority formed
a committee to study the turf issue, and it invited
Crain to join. At one meeting, a representative from
an Italian artificial-turf manufacturer informed the
group that the open health concerns meant he could
no longer sell his rubber-infill product in Europe.
That’s what brought him to America, the salesman
explained, where people were still buying. The Bat-
tery Park City Authority now plans to install artificial
turf, using coconut husks.
39
 ‘It Won’t Taste Great’
The health questions multiply
n December 2007, nearly a decade after
the city put its first artificial field in a park,
the City Council held its first hearing on
the use of artificial turf. Benepe showed up
to testify, accompanied by Nancy Clark,
parks’ capital projects boss Amy Freitag
and Celia Petersen, the Parks Depart-
ment’s head of specifications and esti-
mates. Benepe described Petersen as “one
of the world’s experts on synthetic turf.”
In his testimony, Benepe provided a
brief history of artificial turf, noting the
desirability of fields that don’t require
“weekly mowing, watering, fertilizing, seeding, the
use of chemical pesticides and herbicides or other
time-intensive maintenance tasks.”
AstroTurf was “quite durable,” Benepe said, but
“expensive and not perfect for competitive athletics”
because it was “abrasive” and unyielding, making ath-
letes “susceptible to knee injuries.” Then came syn-
thetic turf. “This new style of turf is technologically
sophisticated,” Benepe said, passing around a sample
of the “much safer and more resilient” rubber-infill
surface made from recycled tires.
“Now this typical artificial-turf field contains sev-
eral layers, including a bottom layer composed of
plastic sheeting, middle layers composed of crushed
stone, plastic tubing for drainage and rubber padding
for shock absorbance. Much of the value of these
fields is actually below the surface,” Benepe said.
“I should point out we are far from the only ones us-
ing synthetic turf,” he continued, counting 150 fields
in New Jersey and 30 in Connecticut. A turf craze
had taken hold in the suburbs of Westchester County.
“They’re all sort of in a competition to see who can in-
stall more of these fields,” Benepe said. Synthetic turf
was going down at the new Giants Stadium, and it
had already been installed at Rutgers, Columbia and
Harvard universities. “If it’s good enough for Har-
vard,” said Benepe, “it’s good enough for Harlem.”
With organized sports more popular than ever, he
explained, grass wasn’t making the cut. Many more
permitted hours were logged at fake fields than grass
ones. He claimed natural fields needed to be closed
for “at least four or five months—all winter long.” (But
in response to a City Limits follow-up, the Parks De-
partment did not supply the name of one grass field
maintained by the city that is closed for the winter. )
40 A Risky Play
“We love grass,” Benepe continued, saying most
baseball and softball leagues prefer natural fields,
while players of soccer were insisting on artificial
turf. “Where we can support natural grass, we do,
as in Marcus Garvey Park, where the Harlem Little
League plays.” He didn’t mention that the Harlem Lit-
tle League, not the city, built and maintained its one
grass field.
Synthetic turf was encouraging exercise, Clark
said, so the Health Department saw no need for the
six-month moratorium being considered by the state
legislature. More than half of the city’s adults—and al-
most half of all its children—are obese or overweight,
she said. Clark mentioned the report her agency had
solicited on existing health studies. “We expect to
complete our review by spring 2008 and will share
our findings with the public and the Council.”
Clark’s testimony was followed by that of environ-
mentalists who worried about the leaching of zinc
from rubber-infill fields and the effect of storm wa-
ter runoff on the city’s troubled sewer system, youth
soccer coaches who favored artificial turf because the
city didn’t maintain grass, and lawyers who warned
about potential liability. Craig Michaels of the non-
profit environmental group Riverkeeper scratched his
head over Clark’s argument that the PAHs in the turf
are already “very common” in the city. “I mean, that
is a dangerous position to be taking,” he said. “We are
exposed to a variety of pollutants in New York City,
but that cannot be used as justification to expose
ourselves to more.” Crain took his turn at the mic.
“What’s desperately needed is not reports on existing
research,” he said. “What we need is new research.”
David Berman, unsurprisingly, disagreed. An
avuncular representative for FieldTurf Tarkett, Ber-
man said his company had been selling its rubber-
infill product for almost 15 years, and he had read
plenty of studies. Enough was enough, he said, invit-
ing Council members to eat a handful of the crumb
rubber: “It won’t taste great, but you cannot get sick
from it, and it will come out of you exactly the way it
went in.”
Two weeks later, FieldTurf Tarkett hired Claudia
Wagner, a high-powered lobbyist, to protect its
interests at City Hall.
Just one month after the Council hearing, an in-
ternal Parks Department memo was leaked to the
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
 Loose turf at Flushing
Meadows. Some teams
make their own repairs
to damaged turf, but it
can get costly.

www.citylimits.org 41
 Riverside Park. The growing
popularity of soccer, a sport that's
particularly tough on the playing
surface, is one rationale for the
move to artificial turf.

42 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4

www.citylimits.org 43
 “Overall the draft report … on the health hazards of
synthetic turf is incomplete, it relies on irrelevant
data sources, it uses a deeply flawed approach to
risk assessment, it glosses over glaring gaps in the
data, and it far too readily dismisses proven risks
to human health.”
watchdog group NYC Park Advocates. It appeared
to make New York the first city in America to stop
installing the synthetic turf from recycled tires. “We
are suspending the use of rubber infill synthetic turf
in all Parks Capital Projects,” read the design directive
dated Jan. 14, 2008.
The Parks Department claimed the wording had
been a mistake. “I incorrectly made a blanket state-
ment,” said Freitag, deputy commissioner of capital
projects. “There is no change in the Parks Depart-
ment’s policy on synthetic turf.” Turf with recycled-
tire infill was still being put in parks, Freitag explained,
but in the future the Parks Department would be “ex-
ploring the use of carpet-style” nylon turf, similar to
the old-fashioned AstroTurf.
To critics of synthetic turf, Freitag’s response
sounded like backpedaling, or a strategy to avoid em-
barrassing questions about existing fields. For months
before her memo, contracts had been modified to use
alternative materials. St. Michael’s Park in Queens, for
example, was slated to re-
ceive recycled-tire turf, but
that summer the new field
HOW'S YOUR PARK? was changed to a coated vir-
gin-rubber product known
Tell us about it as EPDM. The switch added
www.citylimits.org/parks
$500,000 to the project’s
price tag.
One of the authors of the
Jan. 14, 2008, memo was specifications chief Celia
Petersen. The health concerns were not news to her.
Petersen had received data sheets in July 2006 from
an artificial-turf manufacturer named Forever Green;
City Limits obtained the document in a Freedom of
Information Law request.
“This product contains petroleum oils similar to
ones categorized … as causing skin cancer in mice
after prolonged and repeated contact,” one data sheet
read. “Any potential hazard can be minimized by us-
44 A Risky Play
ing … protective equipment to avoid skin contact and
by washing thoroughly.”
A variation on the latter recommendation showed
up on the Health Department’s website: “As with
any outdoor activity, it is recommended that after
using the fields, people wash their hands before
eating or drinking.”
In the spring of 2008, Clark paid a visit to the Chil-
dren’s Environmental Health Center at the Mount
Sinai School of Medicine. She briefed Landrigan and
two colleagues on the turf issue and handed over a
171-page draft of the city’s literature review.
In a letter dated May 14 of that year, Landrigan and
two other doctors at the center advised the Health
Department to not release the “deeply flawed” report,
calling it “superficial and one-sided.” City Limits ob-
tained the damning five-page letter through another
Freedom of Information Law request.
The literature review “does not present a fair and
balanced assessment of the issues surrounding the
potential health hazards of synthetic turf,” the letter read.
“It is not up to the high standard of work that we have
come to expect from the New York City Department
of Health and Mental Hygiene in this administration.”
The letter went on to identify four “proven and po-
tential” hazards of synthetic turf made from recycled
tires. The first and “best established” was exposure to
“excessive heat,” with such medical consequences as
“foot burns, dehydration and heat exhaustion.” The
doctors warned that watering the fields to cool them
down could actually do more harm than good: “That
can set the stage for skin infections,” because “residual
water droplets may act as bacterial incubators.”
This observation led to a more in-depth discussion
of the second risk: MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant
staph infection that can be acquired through turf
burns. MRSA clusters from turf burns had been
reported in The New England Journal of Medicine,
the doctors noted, and in the CDC’s Morbidity and
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
Mortality Weekly Report.
Lastly, the letter raised the risk of chemical
exposures, acknowledging that the scientific
literature was “much less well developed” on
these hazards than on the dangers from heat
and MRSA. “Several credible studies” had
found the crumb rubber contained “known hu-
man carcinogens” and “neurotoxic chemicals,”
as well as lead, chromium and arsenic. The
city’s literature review relied on reports of hu-
man exposure to toxic chemicals from poured-
or hard-rubber products, “very different from
the particulate rubber infill found in synthetic
turf fields” and therefore “only remotely rel-
evant” to its topic.
The letter was blunt in its criticism: “Overall
the draft report from [TRC Companies] on the
health hazards of synthetic turf is incomplete, it
relies on irrelevant data sources, it uses a deeply
flawed approach to risk assessment, it glosses
over glaring gaps in the data, and it far too
readily dismisses proven risks to human health.
It does not take into account the unique expo-
sures and the special vulnerabilities of young
children. It concludes quite inappropriately
that absence of evidence of risk is evidence of
no risk.”
City officials continued to insist that the re-
cycled-tire turf was “perfectly safe,” a phrase
repeated by Benepe at the April 2008 open-
ing of the first athletic field meant to replace
parkland lost to the new Yankee Stadium. “I
would never endanger a child,” he said.
That artificial field, at P.S. 29 in the South
Bronx, was put down on an asphalt schoolyard.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a small band
of students played horns and drums. When
not performing, they sat on folding chairs
and sweated profusely. Several of the students
remarked on the heat waves rising off the
surface. In one corner of the field, behind a
backstop, the city had installed a mister, or
water sprinkler. “It allows players to cool down,”
Benepe explained.
Turf temperatures in New York City have
been measured as high as 171 degrees by NYC
Park Advocates, as the fields absorb sunlight
and give off heat. “Heat stress and dehydration”
were identified as synthetic turf ’s “primary
health concern” in the Health Department’s
literature review, but one study cited in the ap-
pendix made a finer point: “At temperatures
www.citylimits.org
Partners
or Perils?
The debate over
private groups in
public parks
I
n its 2007 tax year, the
Central Park Conservancy
reported $70 million in
revenue and $40 million in ex-
penses on the 840-acre park,
allowing the organization to
clear $30 million. In the equiv-
alent fiscal year, the Parks De-
partment identified $19 million
in expenditures on all its facili-
ties in the Bronx, a low-ball—
but nonetheless low—estimate
of what was spent directly on
a borough with nearly 7,000
acres of parkland.
Depending on where you sit,
the disparity is either an argu-
ment for or an indictment of
the growing trend of private fi-
nancing for public parks.
The Central Park Conservan-
cy was founded in 1980 when
New York City was emerging
from the fiscal crisis, with parks
displaying some deep bruises
from the lean years. Since then,
there is no debating that the
hundreds of millions the conser-
vancy raised have restored the
city's flagship park to its rightful
place as a worldwide attrac-
tion. “Most people don't realize
that it's been completely re-
built,” says Gordon Davis, who
as parks commissioner helped
start the conservancy. “Central
Park is emblematic of the re-
building of the whole system.”
Since then, dozens of other
private groups have sprung
up to improve specific parks;
the department lists 60 “part-
ners” on its website. But they
run the gamut from big-money
corporate entities like Friends
of the High Line (which pays
its president $275,000 a year)
to tiny, shoestring-budget out-
fits like Friends of St. Nicholas
Park, whose biggest project to
date was raising $11,000 for a
dog run.
Critics of public-private part-
nerships have long argued that
the infusion of private money
is disrupting parks' identity as
public objects. Madison Square
Park, for example, is sometimes
dominated by the crowds wait-
ing to slurp up or chow down at
the Shake Shack. At Brooklyn
Bridge Park, an unprecedented
level of private intrusion—hous-
ing, hotel rooms, office space,
and retail—is planned in order
to pay for park upkeep.
“I don't think anyone has a
problem with people lending
a hand,” says Geoffrey Croft,
president of NYC Park Advo-
cates. “I think what people
have the most problems with
is when there's autonomy and
there's little accountability with
these groups.”
Even skeptics of the conser-
vancy model acknowledge the
budget realities that parks face.
“The best of all possible worlds
would be for the city govern-
ment to pay for parks and make
them all look like Central Park,”
says New Yorkers for Parks exec-
utive director Lee Stuart. “That
isn't going to happen.”
But Stuart and others point
out that when limited public
dollars trigger a search for
private funds, some neighbor-
hoods are immensely better
positioned than others. Patricia
Dolan, president of the Flush-
continued on page 46
45
continued from page 45
ing Meadows-Corona Park Conservancy, says that group
was launched in 2002 because ”the park is kind of a step-
child—it doesn't belong to any particular neighborhood.
So it really has never had a champion and that's what
we try to be .” The group organizes tours and advocates
on the parks behalf. It tries—with some difficulty—to raise
funds. ”I don't think that there's any question that the Cen-
tral Park Conservancy is able to attract the kind of sup-
port it has attracted because of what is around Central
Park. On the other hand you take a park like Flushing
Meadows. We have neighborhoods that find it impossible
to make any kind of economic contribution.”
In a 2007 report, the Citizens Budget Commission found
that parks philanthropy can end up helping some parks
users more than others. ”When the service areas are
neighborhoods characterized by different average in-
come levels, this can translate into different levels of ser-
vice for different income groups,” the report read. ”The
growth of nonprofit partnerships for the parks has led
“You take a park like
Flushing Meadows. We
have neighborhoods that
find it impossible to make
any kind of economic
contribution.”
to some such inequities.” CBC called for more consistent
rules on the relationship between the parks system and
parks groups. Earlier this year, the mayor signed a Coun-
cil measure requiring each parks conservancy to include
on its board residents of the areas served by the park.
For better or worse, well-intentioned donations of pri-
vate money or volunteer time end up leveraging public
dollars. Christina Taylor, the executive director of Friends
of Van Cortlandt Park, says that her group has helped her
park get more from City Hall. “Oh yes—definitely. The
Friends were involved in a lot of public funding to get the
cross country trails redone in the 1990s,” she says, and
adds. “If the Friends hadn't advocated for it, [Bronx parks]
wouldn't have got the $243 million in mitigation money
that they got.” That's a reference to the funds being spent
to fix Bronx parks in exchange for part of Van Cortlandt
being torn up by construction of a water filtration plant.
46
The plant will eventually be mostly underground, but its
construction has already exceeded planned budget and
timeline. Friends of Van Cortlandt Park sued the city over
that project; that litigation made relations with the Parks
Department awkward, Taylor says.
Launched in 1992 after a New York Times article be-
moaned the state of Van Cortlandt—the city's fourth-larg-
est park—the Friends claims about 150 paid members that
focus on the natural areas of the park, doing forest and
trail restoration. In what appears to be a first, the Friends
is not the only private group that speaks for Van Cortlandt
Park. Two years ago, the Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy
started up.
“We thought it was kind of glaring that a number of
parks around the city have conservancies, but none in the
Bronx,” says Anthony Perez Cassino, an attorney and area
resident who sits on the conservancy's board. ”One of the
things that we've done is to try to bring together some of
the stakeholders in the park. We're looking at the park in
its whole—everything from what conditions are the ball-
parks in, to what's a future master plan of the park.”
Cassino says without the conservancy, “We'll never see
the resources needed to bring the park to the level that
it should be at.” Those resources will, of course, give the
conservancy standing. “Today, if there's a major decision
that's going to go on in the park, you're going to have the
conservancy involved in the decision. ”
While individual conservancies form to protect their fa-
vorite parks, there is still the question of what effect con-
servancies and other public-private parks partnerships
have on parks as a whole.
Davis, the former commissioner, argues that conser-
vancies help all parks by freeing up limited public re-
sources to go to the parks that can't raise money, and by
creating successful parks that help the system battle for
more resources. “It's able to fight for resources better,” he
says of the system now. ”It's able to rally constituencies.”
But New Yorkers For Parks research and planning man-
ager Alyson Beha is skeptical. “It's really easy to under-
fund parks when a lot of centrally located parks look
nice,” she says. “I think people don't know the state of
neighborhood parks.”
William Mullin does. A member of Friends of St. Nicholas
Park, he says, “I think the frustrating thing recently is be-
cause of budget cuts the park probably looks worse than
it has in three or four years.” But at least the Friends have
a voice: A representative attends the operations meet-
ings that the park holds once a month bringing together
borough park officials, local cops and parks workers.
—Jarrett Murphy
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
 CITY
STATS above 120 degrees, it only takes 3 seconds to burn a child’s
skin severely enough to require surgery.”
NYC Park Advocates released a leaked copy of the liter-
ature review on May 14, the same day as Landrigan’s letter.
City officials quickly responded that the report exonerated
A Different Kind of Green
The Bloomberg administration has dramatically
turf. Though the information contained in the review was
far from conclusive, the media largely accepted the argu-
increased capital expenditures on parks, partly
ment. The New York Times headlined its article on the re-
to pay for artificial turf fields. But spending on port “Study Finds No Evidence of Risk in Synthetic Turf.”
day-to-day operations on parks takes a backseat A Health Department spokesperson stressed that the re-
to other municipal priorities. view shouldn’t have been released to the public: “We are
still reviewing comments from staff and colleagues in the
Capital Commitments For Parks scientific community.” That bothered Stuart Gaffin, a cli-
Millions mate scientist at Columbia University who’d been studying
$1400 artificial turf ’s contribution to the heat island effect, the
phenomenon of built-up cities being significantly warmer
$1200
than surrounding rural areas. “People are being asked to
$1000 comment on something that’s very thin and anecdotal,”
Gaffin said.
$800

$600

$400

$200 “They spent $50,000 doing

$0
’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 a review of the literature,
which basically said, ‘We
don’t really know.’ We
Spending Per Capita, By Department
already knew that.”
$2,216 Education $999 Social
Services
As far as chemical exposure was concerned, the report
concluded what Crain and Zhang had already said: The
$315 Child Welfare $533 Police turf contained known carcinogens as well as some heavy
metals linked to birth defects and mental retardation, but
there was no scientific evidence that artificial turf posed a
$195 Fire $121
major health hazard.
Correction
It hardly calmed critics. “The report didn’t resolve a
thing,” said Gotbaum, who resumed her call for testing and
now supported a moratorium on new installations. “They
Homeless
$160 Sanitation $100 spent $50,000 doing a review of the literature, which basi-
Services
cally said, ‘We don’t really know.’ We already knew that.”

$72 Housing $33 Parks

Source: (Top) Mayor's Management Report,

(Bottom) City Limits analysis of FY2011 adopted budget

www.citylimits.org 47
 Corner kicks are tricky on
this field at Dyker Beach.

48 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4

A TEST FOR TESTING
New products, new rules
ust weeks before the release of the literature re-
view, New Jersey shut down two artificial-turf
fields in Hoboken and Ewing due to high lead
levels. Lead is known not only to harm chil-
dren’s health but also to inhibit their neuro-
logical development.
Any level of lead should be considered
dangerous to children, said New Jersey’s then
deputy health commissioner, Dr. Eddy Bresn-
itz, especially considering that many kids may
have been exposed to lead in other ways. “It
could add to the levels already in their bodies,”
he said, noting that lead had been entirely removed from
products like household paint. “We probably shouldn’t ex-
pose children to any lead.”
The New Jersey fields were made of the old-fashioned,
carpet-style turf, not the rubber-infill turf that New York
was using. At the July 2008 opening of a shredded-tire field in
Jamaica, Queens, Benepe belittled the concerns and even took
credit for ordering the literature review funded by the New
York Community Trust. “There are no health risks,” he said.
But unbeknownst to the public, New York City had qui-
etly started to test fields for lead. In the absence of federal
guidelines, these tests used an EPA standard for acceptable
lead levels in playground soil. The decade-old standard held
that lead concentrations greater than 400 parts per million
were dangerous.
On Nov. 24, 2008, a test was conducted at Thomas Jef-
ferson Park in East Harlem, and the recycled-tire field
flunked. The city decided to destroy the turf, which had
been installed only five years before at a cost of $1.4 million.
Yet this decision was not announced for nearly a month. It
came to light at the end of a business day three days before
Christmas. Gotbaum felt blindsided. “I had no idea about
the testing,” she said. “It had all been done under the radar.
It was very sneaky.” Suddenly, Gotbaum said, the literature
review looked like a delay tactic to avoid testing. “They were
stalling.” She understood the fears of having to replace fields,
“but you can’t have the high lead levels found in Thomas Jef-
ferson Park,” she said.
The Parks Department announced the field had a lead
reading of 500 parts per million, just above the EPA stan-
dard, but the data sheets showed 16 of 31 samples had much
higher readings. One spot had a lead measurement of 1,956
parts per million—nearly four times the field’s single re-
leased reading. Nancy Clark explained the final result had
been a “composite” of the 31 samples. She claimed compos-
ite testing—mixing all the samples together and then taking
www.citylimits.org
one measurement—was “the normal procedure” and “the
best way to characterize an overall field.”
“That’s incorrect,” countered David Brown, a public health
toxicologist, after reviewing the data sheets. Brown is the
former head of environmental epidemiology at the Con-
necticut Department of Public Health, and he’s also worked
at the CDC. “Look at the variability—these readings are all
over the place, and half exceed the regulatory limit. You can’t
average this out.”
“Composites may mask hot spots,” warns an EPA docu-
ment on assessing environmental risks. That’s why Brown
believes composite measurements aren’t appropriate for
health questions: “If a child falls down in the hot spot, the
child’s had the exposure.”
The recycled-tire material complicates the hot-spot prob-
lem. All tires are not the same: They’re manufactured for
different purposes—and in different countries—and can
consequently contain different chemicals or chemicals in
different amounts. But when the city resumed testing 101
other fields in January 2009, far fewer samples were taken
than at Thomas Jefferson Park. While the previous test mea-
sured 31 areas, the new tests combined only five samples
from each field for one composite measurement. The change
in methodology has never been revealed to the public.
Once the scaled-down tests were complete, the Parks De-
partment announced the remaining fields were safe. “We
are pleased that the test results found no further evidence
of lead contamination,” declared Benepe, who called the de-
struction of the Thomas Jefferson field “an aberration.”
Brown was shocked when reviewing the new data sheets,
which now contained just a single reading for each field. “I
could see someone making a blunder once or twice, but this
is continual.”
After the closing of the field at Thomas Jefferson Park,
Benepe officially confirmed what the Parks Department
had repeatedly denied: The city had stopped buying the
fields made from shredded tires.
Another City Council hearing was held in February 2009.
Several Council members backed a bill that would not only
declare a moratorium on future purchases of synthetic turf
but also mandate the removal of all crumb rubber if found
to be dangerous. “You wouldn’t let your child play in a junk-
yard,” said Queens councilman Eric Gioia.
While 12 members of the public testified at the 2007
Council hearing, 40 people signed up to speak this time. To
accommodate the overflow crowd of spectators, the hearing
49
Game Changers
How turf shapes New York sports
T
he Mets' David
Wright and Angel
Pagan are having
good seasons at the plate:
Through July 22, they were
both hitting comfortably
above .300. But Mets fans
would be even happier if
the two got to take all their
swings on a turf field. On
artificial surfaces, both
Pagan and Wright are
batting .500, according to
ESPN.com.
Since artificial turf was
introduced to baseball
at the Astrodome in 1966,
baseball stats-heads have
debated whether and how
the fake surfaces affected
the game. Baseball writer
Mark Armour wrote that
turf “had a huge impact
on the way the game was
played for two decades,
two of the best decades
in baseball's history.” He
adds: “Some of the more
interesting teams of the
era—the Big Red Machine,
Herzog's Cardinals, George
Brett's Royals, the 1980 Phil-
lies—were defined by the
fields they played on.”
Some analysts have
credited turf for increasing
the number of extra-base
hits, although the intrica-
cies of baseball can make
turf's overall impact hard
to detect. A ball rolls faster
on turf than on grass. That
might turn what on grass
would have been a double
into a triple. But it might
50 A Risky Play
also turn what would have
been a slow-rolling infield
hit into a double-play
ball. What's more, base-
ball defenses adapted to
turf conditions, with turf
teams favoring players
who could keep up with
the faster game.
While artificial surfaces
are disappearing from
professional baseball, turf
is having a profound effect
on how sports are played
in New York City parks.
“It's beautiful,” says Doug
Rowen, vice president of
the Bayside Youth Raiders,
a league that suits up 250
kids in divisions covering
ages 5 to 16. “We don’t get
the mud bowls any more.
Kids aren't falling in glass
and rocks anymore.” For
pigskin players, Rowen
points out, the turf is more
than just a place to stand.
“Everyone else is running
around on the turf. We're
landing all over it. And it's
so much nicer.” The lack
of mud makes for a faster
game, Rowen says.
Turf is also speeding up
soccer, says Larry Swert-
loff, a local official with
the American Youth Soccer
Organization who helps
to run a soccer day camp
at the Parade Grounds in
Brooklyn. Swertloff says
coaches who are serious
about travelling and win-
ning have to have their
teams practice on both turf
and grass, so they know
what to expect when they
hit a natural surface.
“When you're warming
up you want to see how
the ball bounces. You
want to shoot all around,”
he says. “Is ten minutes
sufficient? No.” Swertl-
off adds that the goalies
need to understand that
the surface and subsur-
face can be different from
one turf field to another.
“What turf has made pos-
sible by and large is to in-
troduce at an earlier age
and with more confidence
the possession game. The
passing will be consistent,”
he says. “Kids will be willing
to play a one-touch or two-
touch game rather than
dribble, dribble, dribble.”
As for the Mets, fans
might think twice before
pushing for an artificial
surface at CitiField. While
the difference in batting
averages on grass ver-
sus turf obviously has as
much to do with the teams
and pitchers the Mets
face, most Mets hitters fare
worse on the fake stuff.
Jeff Francouer and Ike Da-
vis' averages on turf are a A warning at Dyker
combined 290 points lower Beach. Some parks
than on grass. And Jose restrict who uses turf
Reyes slips from .279 to .222 fields and for what
when he moves from real purpose, which can
green to plastic. help to preserve the
—Jarrett Murphy turf but complicates
the push to make more
parks accessible to all.
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
 was moved to the main City Council chambers.
Clark began by citing the Health Department’s literature
review to support the Bloomberg administration’s contention
that, with the exception of the field at Thomas Jefferson Park,
artificial turf was safe. The review examined studies that ac-
counted for the “special vulnerabilities” of children, she as-
sured the Council, contradicting the criticisms of the doctors
at Mount Sinai School of Medicine while appropriating the
language of their letter. “In addition, the report also found
that neither bacterial infections nor physical injuries were sig-
nificantly related to synthetic-turf playing fields.” Exposure to
the chemicals commonly found in synthetic turf was “likely
to be too small through ingestion, dermal or inhalation to in-
crease the risk of any health defect,” she said, speaking out
against the moratorium bill, calling it “counterproductive.”
By now the literature review was out of date, at least on
one count. In September 2008, Zhang and Crain published a
peer-reviewed arti-
cle in the Journal of
Exposure Science &
Environmental Epi- ART OUT
demiology finding
that lead in the rub- Video: Artists ousted
ber crumbs could from Union Square Park
be absorbed into the www.citylimits.org/parks

body by the diges-

tive tract. “Inges-
tion of the crumb
infill” was also mentioned as the main route of exposure for
children at Thomas Jefferson Park by Deputy Parks Commis-
sioner Liam Kavanagh in a Jan. 14, 2009, letter to the city
comptroller and corporation counsel requesting $908,420 in
emergency funds to replace the field.
Zhang and Crain’s latest study did not come up at the City
Council hearing. Clark and Kavanagh attributed the city’s
shift in materials solely to concerns about the excessive heat.
Kavanagh told Council members the city had no plans to
replace the rubber pellets in its recycled-tire fields, but the
material would be removed eventually as part of the turf ’s
“normal” eight- to 10-year replacement cycle.
“The source of the lead contamination at Thomas Jefferson
field is not known,” insisted Clark, who nonetheless believed
it was “most likely” due to “some external” source. When the
field was first shut down, Benepe said, “It’s possible there’s
something in the soil there.” Yet a new virgin-rubber field
was going down on exactly the same spot.
Afterward, two newspaper reporters approached Clark
in the hallway. When questioned about the use of compos-
ite testing, she said, “It’s standard and statistical because you
want to characterize the fields as a whole.”
But aren’t you diluting higher readings?
She arched her brow. “I don’t know what you’re asking.”
Frank Lombardi, a veteran City Hall reporter for the Daily

www.citylimits.org 51
News, moved closer with his tape recorder. Clark backed away.
“It doesn’t bite,” he joked, “believe me.”
Clark stammered. “I’m not comfortable to have somebody pointing a tape
recorder at me.”
Lombardi apologized: “It’s to pick up your voice.”
“You want to talk to the Parks Department about all of this,” Clark said, abrupt-
ly ending the interview. “We’re not authorities on parks or materials,” she called
back, as she stepped toward the stairwell out of City Hall.
At an unrelated press conference on the first floor, Bloomberg was asked about
the hearing. He blasted the controversy as a “made-up story,” once again citing the
problem of childhood obesity. “The real risk is not getting the kids to the park,”
he said.

Under California's new standard—the

nation's first enforceable limit on lead
in artificial turf—New York City would
have had to close a total of 23 fields
in parks alone.

Public Advocate Gotbaum had asked the Parks Department to test its synthetic-
turf fields in April 2007. But instead of learning whether its playing surfaces were
safe, the Bloomberg administration opted to wait nearly a full year for the litera-
ture review; in that time, the city spent an estimated $40 million to install about
30 more artificial-turf fields using rubber from recycled tires.
The unfolding of these events sounded awfully familiar to Dave Palmer, then
an attorney for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. He was on a committee
formed by the public advocate to study the turf issue, but he’d already witnessed
the Bloomberg administration’s reluctance to deal with health concerns when
they threatened to hamper its pursuit of a policy goal.
Palmer was involved in a different backroom negotiation at City Hall in late
2006, representing South Bronx residents opposed to the building of four new
schools on contaminated land in Mott Haven. He won a promise from the admin-
istration to fund an independent environmental assessment of the site. But just
two weeks later, and four days before Christmas, the city silently resubmitted the
schools plan, triggering an automatic 20-day deadline for the Council to reject
the project. Palmer had a rude awakening when he returned to work after the
holidays. “Why would they agree to fund our assessment and then not wait for
the results?” he wondered. The city claimed the deadline was set to avoid soliciting
new bids for the contract. The tests and cleanup were eventually done, but it took
a lawsuit to force the city to come up with a monitoring plan to see if its approach
to the contamination had worked.

52 A Risky Play
Fernando Alvarez of Estudiantes
Tecos, in orange, moves the ball
at Oval Park.
 CITY
STATS City vs. City
New York City compares very favorably to other municipalities
when it comes to how much of its land mass is devoted to parks.
But New York spends less money per capita on parks than other
major cities.

Percentage of land devoted to parks (top 10 among all American cities)

ANCHORAGE 39.9%

ALBUQUERQUE 30.0%

SAN DIEGO 21.9%

NEW YORK 19.5%

WASHINGTON 19.4%

JACKSONVILLE 19.3%

SAN FRANCISCO 18%

JERSEY CITY 17.3%

EL PASO 17.1%

MINNEAPOLIS 16.7%

Under this new standard, which will take effect

Without regular maintenance
and inspections, the integrity
of the playing surface is at
risk. A monitoring system had
once been established at the
Parks Department, but this
was abandoned, according to
an agency spokesperson.
“They don’t start out with evil intentions, but they mis-
handle the process horribly,” says Palmer. “They get so de-
fensive: ‘You want to make sure it’s safe, and who’s going to
pay for that?’”
Before Barack Obama became president, he was a sponsor
of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008,
which will lower acceptable lead levels in children’s products
over a three-year period to 100 parts per million, much less
than the state’s current soil standard of 400 parts per million,
which was used by the city to test its artificial-turf fields.
next year, seven other artificial-turf fields in city
parks would have flunked the test. These fields
are at Randall’s Island, the Parade Grounds, and
J.J. Walker, Forest, Eugene McCabe, Juniper Val-
ley and St. Mary’s parks. If the city based its deci-
sion on the results of individual samples instead
of composite testing, there’s a good chance many
more fields would have failed.
But the new federal standard won’t apply to ar-
tificial turf. The Consumer Product Safety Com-
mission decided not to classify turf as a children’s
product after manufacturers asked for a ruling.
The health questions will now be answered by
the Environmental Protection Agency, which re-
leased its own “limited field monitoring study”
in December 2009. Air and wipe samples at four locations
found lead and chemical concentrations to be below levels
considered harmful, but the EPA noted this study was not
large enough to be conclusive. Last month the agency held
a closed-door meeting in New York City, bringing together
federal and state officials to share information and to dis-
cuss whether additional research is needed. An EPA spokes-
man would not comment on the results of that meeting. The
CPSC has yet to decide. Turf was not mentioned by name
in the current federal law, but that didn’t stand in the way

54 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4

 Operating expenditure per capita on parks (America's 10 largest cities)
CHICAGO
SAN DIEGO
SAN JOSE
LOS ANGELES
PHOENIX
DALLAS
SAN ANTONIO
NEW YORK $33
PHILADELPHIA $31
$31
HOUSTON
of California creating its own standard. In 2008 that state
sued three athletic-field manufacturers, including FieldTurf
Tarkett, for having “knowingly and intentionally exposed”
kids to lead. The three firms have now settled the lawsuit,
agreeing to reformulate their products to reduce lead levels
to 50 parts per million.
Under California’s new standard—the nation’s first en-
forceable limit on lead in artificial turf—New York City
would have had to shut a total of 24 fields in parks alone.
Though many doctors believe no amount of lead is safe for
kids, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommend-
ed a maximum of 40 parts per million in children’s products.
When the group issued that opinion, it also set new low stan-
dards for other metals and chemicals commonly found in
turf, including cadmium and arsenic. Under the AAP’s stan-
dard for lead, the city’s composite tests would have forced
the closure of 33 park fields.
Today New York City parks have 120 infill fields, all but
eight using the crumb rubber from recycled tires; 11 fields
are nylon carpets. The Parks Department currently plans to
install at least 23 more carpets and 19 fields using alterna-
tive materials as infill; it has not yet decided what to use for
nine other planned fields. The alternative materials include
virgin rubber, sand coated with plastic or acrylic paint, and
www.citylimits.org
$137
$87
$73
$66
$64
$57
$41
Source: (Left) Trust for Public
Land, (Right) City Limits analysis
of FY2010 budgets for these cities
ground-up walnut shells. The Department of Education—
which has 47 shredded-tire fields and 31 carpets—will use
an alternative infill of polyethylene foam and sand.
In June, Bloomberg signed a bill that requires the Parks
and Health departments to work together on vetting these
new materials before they go into playing fields. Officials
from both agencies had lobbied against the law. An advisory
committee will be formed to monitor materials. The panel’s
opinions are nonbinding, though its findings will be posted
online. Turf manufacturers are now required by the Parks
Department to test for lead, chromium and zinc, but not any
of the other chemicals that have caused health concerns.
The city has previously shown a reluctance to enforce
standards over time. Its only safety test for artificial turf—
the Gmax rating—measures a field’s ability to absorb impact,
which is crucial to avoiding concussions and other severe
injuries. Yet six months after installation, the Parks Depart-
ment no longer requires a field to be tested for its Gmax rat-
ing, a disturbing fact because Gmax readings change over
time. As artificial turf ages—and infill material scatters and
dissipates—fields break down, and the public may be ex-
posed to the possibility of severe injuries on untested fields.
Without regular maintenance and inspections, the integ-
rity of the playing surface is at risk. A monitoring system
had once been established at the Parks Department, but
this was abandoned, according to an agency spokesperson.
55
Walking the track at Pelham Bay
Park, with a damaged field in
the background. Opposite: Dyker
Beach’s fake grass is wearing
down to rubber.
A Time For Turf
New York's parks, before and after artificial grass
1733 The city's first park
is established at Bowling
Green.
1851 After years of advo-
cacy by parks enthusiasts
for a large, flagship park
to rival those of London
and other great cities,
New York City sets aside
money for what will be-
come Central Park.
1898 Brooklyn, Queens
and Staten Island join with
Manhattan and the Bronx
to form New York City.
Together, the boroughs
56 A Risky Play
have just under 7,000 1934 Mayor LaGuardia
acres of parks. combines the five sepa-
rate borough park systems
1903 Seward Park be- into a single, citywide de-
comes the first city park partment and puts Robert
in the country to have a Moses in charge.
permanent playground.
1958 A Columbia
1925 The Great Gatsby University-based commit-
is published. It describes tee studying the lack of
”a valley of ashes—a green spaces for inner-
fantastic farm where city schools concludes:
ashes grow like wheat “Whoever invents for
into ridges and hills and rooftop and playground
grotesque gardens” that a material that looks like
refers to the area that grass and acts like grass,
will eventually become a turf-like substance on
Flushing Meadows park. which a ball will bounce
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
and a child will not, a cov-
ering that brings a slice of
spring in Scarsdale to 14th
Street in April, will have
struck a blow for stability
in the big city.”
1964 World’s Fair is held
at Flushing Meadows-
Corona Park
1966 The Astrodome
installs its lining of
artificial Astroturf.
1975 The city's fiscal
crisis ushers in a period
of budget cuts and
physical deterioration
for parks.
1980 Central Park
Conservancy is founded.
1988 Violent clashes
between protesters and
police at Tompkins Square
Park lead to more than
100 complaints of police
brutality.
1998 The city installs its
first artificial field, a nylon
carpet at Chelsea Park.
2002 New city Parks com-
missioner Adrian Benepe
expresses enthusiasm for
the new generation of rub-
ber infill fields.
www.citylimits.org
2003 The Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Preven-
tion blames turf for provid-
ing an entry point for the
antibiotic-resistant staph
infection known as MRSA,
citing cases of infected
NFL players.
2004 Citing concerns
about the impact on the
grass, Bloomberg admin-
istration denies permit to
a peace group hoping to
demonstrate in Central
Park's Great Lawn during
the Republican National
Convention.
2006 Internal Parks De-
partment memo based on
a survey of turf fields finds,
“Most fields are displaying
problems,” and lists de-
fects ranging from disinte-
grating fibers and “carpet
wrinkling” to shredded
seams and “playing lines
ripped out completely.”
2007 New York Commu-
nity Trust grants $100,000
for tests of artificial turf.
City health department
instead embarks on a lit-
erature review of previous
research on turf.
2008 A parks memo
says the city has stopped
installing rubber-infill turf,
but officials deny a policy
change. The city begins
testing all turf fields in the
fall of 2008. Just before
Christmas, Parks announc-
es that one field—East
Harlem's Thomas Jefferson
Park—has failed the test
and will be destroyed.
New Jersey closes two turf
fields for health reasons.
2009 City resumes test-
ing fields, but with a new
method: Instead of the 31
samples taken at Jefferson
Park, each park will be
evaluated on a mere five
samples. City declares all
other parks safe. Parks
department withdraws
a request for $40 million
in federal funding to fix
problems with turf.
2010 City plans an
additional 52 fields
using artificial turf.
57
It's a little burnt, but it's
real: baseball on grass
at Van Cortlandt.
A SWING AND A HIT
An alternative at the ballpark
nstead of allocating the necessary expense
dollars for day-to-day operations in city
parks, New York has decided to borrow cap-
ital funds to rebuild. Parks advocate Geof-
frey Croft calls this “the constant recapital-
ization of parks,” using a phrase he picked
up from Central Park Conservancy founder
Betsy Barlow Rogers. “It’s a vicious cycle.”
While the city avoids paying benefits to
workers, future generations are saddled
with debt. Under the Bloomberg adminis-
tration, the annual debt service on Parks Department
capital projects has nearly tripled to $180 million a
year. New Yorkers will be paying on today’s turf fields
long after the fields are gone.
“We have the best fields in New York. You should
see the expressions on the kids who come here to
play. They can't believe they're in Queens.”
There is an alternative, though. Three state-of-the-
art grass baseball fields sit in Juniper Valley Park,
located in the solidly middle-class neighborhood of
Middle Village, Queens. The 55-acre park was built
on peat bog known as Juniper Swamp, which had
once been bought for a real estate scam orchestrated
by Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein, the gambler best re-
membered for setting up the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
The three clay-and-grass baseball fields are main-
tained not by the city but by two volunteers from the
Juniper Park Civic Association. “We have the best
fields in New York,” boasts the association’s president,
Robert Holden. “You should see the expressions on
www.citylimits.org
the kids who come here to play. They can’t believe
they’re in Queens.”
The park also has a synthetic-turf athletic field. “It’s
very hot, and they don’t maintain it,” Holden com-
plains. “You smell it on hot days. The odor is terrible.
We’ve already asked Parks to remove it.”
When that turf field was installed in 2003 for $1.4
million, the Parks Department issued a press re-
lease claiming, “The newest synthetics are giving
old grass fields a run for their money.” Holden is
deeply skeptical. “Our grass field will outlast the ar-
tificial turf for sure.”
Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe may now say
that a grass field costs $14,000 a year to maintain, in-
cluding staffing and equipment, but he once told The
New York Times the annual upkeep for grass could
add up to $35,000. At other times, the agency has put
the maintenance tab for grass at $29,000. “We do it
for a lot less,” says Holden, who estimates his yearly
cost for organically maintaining each of his well-
groomed fields is just $2,600.
“We don’t get paid, of course,” he says, “but it can
be done, if Parks would hire people to maintain the
fields. Baseball should be played on grass.” CL
59
 Resources for using and
helping New York’s parks
Take Part
Across its 28,000 acres, besides
the basics of baseball and soccer,
the city’s park system features
some unique activities. For more
information on the recreational
offerings listed below, go to www.
nycgovparks.org and look up
the park you’re interested in.
The following list is far from
comprehensive in terms of the
activities or parks listed, but is meant
to give a sense of what’s available:
Adventure Course
• Alley Pond Park, Queens
Archery
• Willowbrook Park, Staten Island
Bocce Courts
• Bronx Park, The Bronx
• Brookville Park, Queens
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Boardwalk
and Beach, Staten Island
• James J. Walker Park, Manhattan
• McCarren Park, Brooklyn
Canoe/Kayak Launch Sites
• Barretto Point Park, The Bronx
• Conference House Park, Staten Island
• Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan
• Little Bay Park, Queens
• Marine Park, Brooklyn
60 A Risky Play
Cricket
• Baisley Pond Park, Queens
• Canarsie Park, Brooklyn
• Ferry Point Park, The Bronx
• Walker Park, Staten Island
Cycling Track
• Kissena Park, Queens
Fishing
• Baisley Pond Park, Queens
• Central Park, Manhattan
• Crotona Park, The Bronx
• Prospect Park, Brooklyn
• Wolfe’s Pond Park, Staten Island
Fitness Equipment
• Clove Lakes Park, Staten Island
• Kissena Park, Queens
• Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan
• St Mary’s Park, The Bronx
• Wingate Park, Brooklyn
Gaelic Football
• Van Cortlandt Park, The Bronx
Hiking Trails
• Alley Pond Park, Queens
• Deere Park, Staten Island
• Pelham Bay Park, The Bronx
• Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Historic Houses
• Conference House Park, Staten Island
• Fort Washington Park, Manhattan
• Pelham Bay Park, The Bronx
• Queens Farm Museum, Queens
• Washington Park, Brooklyn
Horseback Riding
• Central Park, Manhattan
• Forest Park, Queens
• Prospect Park, Brooklyn
• Van Cortlandt Park, The Bronx
Ice Skating Rinks
• Bryant Park, Manhattan
• Central Park, Manhattan
• Clove Lakes Park, Staten Island
• Coney Island Beach & Boardwalk,
Brooklyn
Marinas
• Lemon Creek Park, Staten Island
• Point Yacht Club, The Bronx
• Riverside Park, Manhattan
• Sheepshead Bay Piers, Brooklyn
Model Aircraft Fields
• Calvert Vaux, Brooklyn
• Forest Park, Queens
• La Tourette Park & Golf Course,
Staten Island
Nature Centers
• Blue Heron Park Preserve, Staten Island
• Crotona Park, The Bronx
• Fort Totten Park, Queens
• Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan
• Prospect Park, Brooklyn
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
 Paddle Boats BRONX
• Central Park, Manhattan • Bronx River Alliance
• Clove Lakes Park, Staten Island michelle.williams@parks.nyc.gov
• Prospect Park, Brooklyn • Friends of Crotona Park
(718) 716-1128
Roller Hockey • Friends of Pelham Bay Park
• Carl Schurz Park, Manhattan (718) 430-1890
• Mafera Park, Queens
• Owl’s Head Park, Brooklyn
• Pelham Bay Park, The Bronx BROOKLYN
• Wolfe's Pond Park, Staten Island • Fort Greene Park Conservancy
www.fortgreenepark.org
Skate Parks • Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn
• Coleman Playground, Manhattan www.openspacealliancenb.org/
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Boardwalk and • Prospect Park Alliance
Beach, Staten Island (718) 965-8960 
• Mullaly Park, The Bronx
• Owl’s Head Park, Brooklyn
• Rockaway Beach & Boardwalk, Queens QUEENS
• Friends of Fort Totten Park
Volleyball Courts (718) 670-3684
• Highbridge Park, Manhattan • Rockaway Waterfront Alliance
• Rockaway Beach, Queens info@rwalliance.org
• Williamsbridge Oval, The Bronx • Udalls Cove Preservation Committee
• Wingate Park, Brooklyn (718) 224-7256

MANHATTAN
Take Care • Fort Tryon Park Trust
If you want to volunteer in your info@FortTryonParkTrust.org
local park or to help parks citywide, • Friends of Morningside Park
here are just a few of the many volunteer@morningsidepark.org
organizations that play a role in • Riverside Park Fund
supporting parks (For a more www.riversideparkfund.org
comprehensive list, check out
www.nycgovparks.org/sub_about/
partners/partners.html).
STATEN ISLAND
• Greenbelt Conservancy
CITYWIDE (718) 667-2165
• Become a volunteer fitness instructor • Greenbelt Native Plant Center
www.nycservice.org/opportunities/2128 (718) 370–9044
• Volunteer with the Urban Park Rangers
Stop by the closest Parks nature center for
more information
• Help collect recyclables at special events 8 MILLION PEOPLE
www.nycgovparks.org/sub_opportunities/ 365 DAYS
volunteer/greenteam.html FIVE BOROUGHS
• GreenThumb Urban Gardening
(212) 788-8070 More things to do at
• Help the city plant a million trees www.citylimits.org/calendar
www.milliontreesnyc.org/html/involved/
how_to_get_involved.shtml

www.citylimits.org 61

Opportunies in the urban
affairs world from events
to careers
CALENDAR
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
ALL DAY
Making Cents International
2010 Global Youth Enterprise
& Livelihoods Development
Conference
Washington, D.C.
The world is experiencing a
youth employment crisis. It is
critical that a multi-sectoral
global community identi-
fies and pursues innovative
approaches for increasing and
improving economic opportu-
nities for young people. With
this backdrop, Making Cents
International will convene
practitioners, donors, educa-
tors, researchers, policymak-
ers, youth entrepreneurs and
other partners in youth enter-
prise, employment and liveli-
hoods development for the
2010 Global Youth Enterprise
& Livelihoods Development
Conference. Conference par-
ticipants are part of a growing
community committed to
investing in young people and
the innovations necessary to
ensure programs and policies
achieve greater impact, sus-
tainability, and scale.
For more information, visit
www.youthenterpriseconfer-
ence.org.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23
ALL DAY
The 19th Annual New York
Cares Day
214 West 29th Street
Manhattan
Inspiring learning environ-
ments play an important
role in student success, but
New York City public school
budgets are stretched to the
limit, pushing many revitaliza-
tion and upkeep projects to
the back burner. Join 7,000
volunteers on New York Cares
Day, New York City’s largest
day of volunteer service, to
paint colorful murals, refresh
classrooms, organize libraries
and brighten up playgrounds
at more than 100 public
schools. Registration for
volunteer teams is now open,
and individuals can register at
newyorkcaresday.org until the
day prior to the event.
For more information, visit
www.newyorkcaresday.org.
CITY SPACES
Space Available in
Harlem: 2,500 Sq. ft.-
Office Space.
Twenty-First Century Founda-
tion, a national public foundation
in Harlem is looking for a
community tenant to sublease
approx. 2,500 sq. ft of office space.
Ideal space for nonprofit ad-
ministrative office. Location:
132 West 112th street/ West
Harlem (2007 construction);
cross streets: St. Nicholas
Avenue and Adam Clayton
Powell Blvd. Condominium/
professional complex (w/
separate/private entrance)
24/7 Building Access. Share
use of conference room,
automated reception coverage,
copier, fax, kitchenette and
restrooms. Access to private
courtyard/garden (ideal for
private functions/fundraisers).
Near subway: #2, 3, B, C sub-
way lines and Metro North;
trouble-free/painless street
parking. Walking distance to
Central Park (two blocks).
Office space includes two
private offices, and 10 semi-
private furnished worksta-
tions. Most of available space
faces a window line view into
a quiet private garden/court-
yard. All workstations and
private offices are equipped
with ports for computers,
printers and phones. Confer-
ence room (capacity 15-20)
is also equipped with a Sony/
Bose TV projection screen,
audio system and CPU, as well
as a polycom voice conference
system. General office mainte-
nance included.
For more information,
contact: arojas@21cf.org
Office Space for
Sublet in 2,000 Square
Foot Loft
126 Fifth Avenue, Suite 300
Manhattan
Literary agency in the heart
of the Flatiron District has
a corner office for sublet in
a 2,000-sq-ft loft. Very high
ceilings, pre-war, great light,
wood floors, six large windows
with north and east views of
5th Avenue. One block from
Union Square. 350 square feet,
can fit three or four people;
shared reception area, in-loft
kitchen/bathroom. Monthly
charge: $2,200; covers rent,
elec., fees, taxes, water, office
cleaning/supplies, security and
garbage removal.
Contact:
rebecca@lazinbooks.com.
4,000 Square Feet of
Office Space Available
Brooklyn
4,000 square feet of office
space is available on the
ground floor of a duplex in
the Brooklyn neighborhood
of Bushwick. The space can
accommodate several types
of professional businesses but
is ideally suited for medical
practitioners.
For more information, please
contact twhite@catchnyc.org
or 212-431-9700, ext. 313.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Bronx Overall Economic
Development Corporation
Elects New President
Marlene Cintron has been
elected to be the President of
the Bronx Overall Economic
Development Corporation.
Cintron most recently served
as Executive Director of the
New York State’s Puerto Rican
and Latino Caucus. Prior to
that, she was Chief Financial
Officer at International
Immigrants Foundation from
2007 to 2008 and President
of the Resource Center for
Community Development
from 2001 to 2007. Her private
sector financial experience
includes having served as a
Senior Financial Advisor with
the Merrill Lynch Private
Client Group from 1996 to
2001 and as Vice President
for Governmental Relations
at Citibank NA from 1985 to
1991. Cintron’s government
service also includes stints
as Regional Director for the
Puerto Rico Federal Affairs
Administration, Executive
Director of the NYC Mayor’s
Office of Latino Affairs and
Executive Director for U.S.
Congressman Robert Garcia.

62 A Risky Play City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4

Mayor John Lindsay sweats the city budget in 1966. City Limits
subscribers can get a members’ discount on walking tours about the
Lindsay era (and other times in New York’s history) sponsored by the
Museum of the City of New York. Photo by Orlando Fernandez. Nationwide Wireless Internet Now Available Call For More Info

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Museum of the City The Life of the Party—Are

of New York
Visit www.citylimits.org/
mcny, call (917) 492-3395
or e-mail programs@mcny.
org and mention that you’re
a reader or subscriber to
City Limits and receive the
museum membership rate for
the following programs:
Partisan Elections Good for Now Offering
New York City? Nationwide
High Speed DSL !
Wednesday, September 22
6:30 PM
The Urban Forum: New York
Neighborhoods, Preservation
and Development
Activation Fee: $35.00. Plan includes Unlimited nights & weekends.
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for Affordable Housing?

Saturday, September 11
11:00 AM & 2:00 PM
In Memoriam: New York City,
9/11/01: Film Screening
Sunday, September 12
2:00 PM
Walking Tour: The Legacy
of the Lindsay Era in Lower
Manhattan
Tuesday, September 14
6:00 PM
Symposium: Criminal Justice
and the Lindsay Years
Wednesday, September 15
6:30 PM
New York Descending: John V.
Lindsay & the Fiscal Crisis
 
Thursday, September 16
6:30 PM
Monday, September 27
6:30 PM
Adventure in Central Park:
Inventing and Reinventing the
Playground
Wall Street Walks
10 Percent Discount on All
Walking Tours
Come on a fascinating jour-
ney into the financial heart
of New York City with Wall
Street Walks. Our guided
walking tours, led by real
industry insiders, provide an
exciting peek at what happens
behind the scenes on Wall
Street. Wall Street Walks of-
fers a number of exciting and
specialized walking tours of
the financial district on such
topics as the history of the
stock market; Wall Street’s
panics and crashes; the
women of Wall Street as well
as a visit to the New York
Federal Gold Reserve. Receive
a 10 percent discount on the
price of all walking tours
offered by Wall Street Walks
when you enter the discount
code “CITYLIMITS” when
buying tickets. Offer expires
December 31, 2010.
Art for Healing New York City
10 Percent Discount on All
Walking Tours
Art For Healing NYC is a
nationally registered nonprofit
organization. We have a huge
original art collection here at
our gallery on west 50th St.
and 9th Avenue. For a limited
time, we are offering all City
Limits members a 10 percent
discount on all art works
purchased. Please call Loren
212 977-1165 or email her for
an appointment as evenings
are fine too. Please mention
“CITYLIMITS” when in-store.
Offer expires October 5, 2010.
HAVE AN EVENT,
ANNOUNCEMENT OR
JOB LISTING?
SUBMIT IT TO
CITY LIMITS!
www.citylimits.org/post

www.citylimits.org 63
 Revisiting images
from our archives
Beach 44th Street in 1980.
Back to the Beach
New York’s neighbor-
hoods are always
changing in some
dimensions—their
people, their pros-
pects, the buildings
and businesses. But
Beach 44th Street today.
not everything can
change. Geography is a constant. Riverdale will always
overlook the river. Douglas Manor will always be a long
way from Stapleton. And the Rockaways will always be
a tiny strip of land on the edge of the city, surrounded
by water and marsh.
Thirty years ago City Limits reported on a transforma-
tion taking place on that barrier peninsula. In our August/
September 1980 edition, in an article called ”Rockaway
Bungalows: A Bad Bet,” Susan Baldwin wrote:
“At the turn of the century and even in more
recent years, a person could look forward
to spending a restful summer holiday
on the bright and clean beaches of the
Rockaways.
The area has that Gatsby-like quality re-
calling an elegant era when the chosen few
would “summer” at the beach in the huge
frame oceanfront hotels with elegant names
like the Palace or Jefferson Manor—some of
which are still standing as half burned-out
hulks or are still habitable and being used
by the city as emergency relocation hous-
ing for families burned out of apartments
64 A Risky Play
in many of New York City’s most ravaged
neighborhoods
Today the retreat that once served the
wealthy, then the middle class, is now be-
coming a dumping ground for the destitute
in desperate need of housing and social
services, who are being housed in substan-
dard dwellings coyly called bungalows and
paying inflated rents to absentee landlords.
During recent hot and humid days, peo-
ple could be seen frolicking on the beauti-
ful beach, unmindful like most of New York
City of the housing disaster-in-progress just
yards away.”
A visit to the Rockaways these days finds some
features that echo Baldwin’s dreary portrait. At the
peninsula’s far eastern end, the beaches can look pretty
desolate. There are more than a few homes that have
burned or are boarded up. But sweeping new housing
developments at Arverne and Water’s Edge have given
parts of the area a spanking new look.
According to the most recent available statistics
(gathered by the Furman Center at New York University),
the overall picture is different from 30 years ago. Poverty
was down from 22 percent in 2000 to 15 percent in 2008,
and unemployment was halved over that period. Popu-
lation is up by 10 percent over 2000 levels. Crime is 80
percent lower than in 1990. But the recession is taking its
toll. The foreclosure rate is rising, and so is crime, up 14
percent so far this year.
–JM
Check out more images from City Limits archives at
www.citylimits.org/archives
City Limits / Vol. 34 / No. 4
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