There was always something to do in the red brick park house with its large inviting arches.
Children huddled around chess and checkers when the playgrounds and basketball courts had rained out. They played ping pong, learned to whistle in a wood shop, and watched movies with their friends.
This is over 40 years ago.
“The kids really had nowhere to play,” says Bob Humber, 86, who was a youth worker in the 1970s. “They had no other place. They loved that place.”
But that was before city park officials quietly converted the brick building — which had thrived as a Lower East Side community center as part of Sara D. Roosevelt Park — into a storage area for equipment and supplies. It is not clear when exactly that happened.
Today it looks like a fortress with partially boarded up windows in a sketchy area of the park where people sell and use K2 and other illegal drugs. Behind the building is an outdoor area with benches and spray showers for cooling off on summer days, after it has been temporarily cordoned off to deter illegal activity.
The loss of the park house illustrates the challenges in a long-standing struggle by residents and community groups to save a narrow swath of urban parkland spanning Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Chinatown neighborhoods. Built by city officials in 1934 as an urban regeneration project to provide relief for families in squalid tenements, the park has become a relief basin for the city’s crime and drug problems and homeless crisis.
“This building is a dead space right now because it’s just for the toilet paper and the paint in it,” said Melissa Aase, the CEO of University settlement, a non-profit organization that runs education and social service programs. “In a city that is becoming increasingly dense, every possible welcoming space is needed to strengthen the community.”
Reopening the park home would create “an anchor of safety” at a time when many residents are concerned about crime by introducing programming and bringing in more visitors, said K Webster, the president of the park. Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition. “The only way we know to make a park safe again is to actively use it,” she said.
It’s a strategy that worked for another park in Manhattan. A full range of activities – including movie nights, concerts, dancing and ice skating – helped transform Bryant Park from an abandoned crime-ridden spot in the 1990s to one of the city’s premier green spaces, said Dan Biederman, the president of the Bryant Park Corporation, a nonprofit.
But city park officials were unwilling to turn over the park house—which is next to Stanton Street—until they can find an alternate storage facility.
“The Stanton Street building is a major distribution center for supplies and tools that serves parks throughout Manhattan on a daily basis,” said Megan Moriarty, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation. “We are actively working to identify a viable alternative location for this distribution center; any future public use will be determined at a later date.”
The battle for the park house is coming as the pandemic has done exposed the inequality of city life. Many poor New Yorkers have limited access to the city’s sprawling network of more than 1,700 parks, playgrounds and recreational facilities, which has become more important than ever for physical and mental health.
A campaign led by New Yorkers for Parks, an advocacy group, has called for funding for parks to be increased to 1 percent of the city’s budget, or about $1 billion. It rose to $624 million in this year’s budget, with a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams calling it: “a deposit” on the 1 percent target.
The demise of Sara D. Roosevelt Park exemplifies “many decades in the making of what happens to a park if you don’t provide the resources to operate and maintain it,” said Adam Ganser, the executive director of New Yorkers for parks.
It serves a working-class neighborhood that is sandwiched between new expensive neighborhoods and luxury development projects. The median household income around the park was $69,202 per year compared to $89,812 for Manhattan, according to a census analysis of Social Explorera research agency.
As parts of the park have become desolate and devastated, many families and the elderly have stayed away. Frances Brown, 40, pushed her son’s stroller past gunshots from drug users. They went to a playground near Stanton’s house a few times last year until they found human feces there. “Never again,” she said.
Fences to close off problem areas have reduced more park space. “It seems to be totally counterproductive because the park was made for people — and it undermines that purpose,” said Tom Wolf, an art history professor whose loft overlooks the park.
Fears for the safety of the park flared up last year after a bicycle delivery man was fatally stabbed there. Concerns over anti-Asian violence in the area also increased after a woman was stabbed to death in her apartment opposite the park in February by a homeless man.
51 major crimes — including one murder, nine felonies and 12 robberies — have been reported in Sara D. Roosevelt Park since 2019, according to an analysis of police data by OpenTheBooks.com, a non-profit organization. Last year alone, the park had 17 crimes and was ranked 11th among parks in the entire city.
An organization, Audubon New York, last year shelved a plan to create a garden in the park after a program manager raised concerns about the safety of its employees and volunteers.
The problems have spread to the surrounding blocks. People have destroyed buildings and aggressively threatened store employees and customers. A wine bar has found drugs, needles and knives hidden in its planters.
An acupuncture clinic across the street from the park eventually moved to the Union Square area for safety reasons. “It’s just a no man’s land in many ways,” says Nini Mai, 40, the founder.
In the 1980s, however, Sara D. Roosevelt Park was overrun with drugs, crime, and prostitution. Local residents gathered to pick up trash and drug needles from playgrounds. They transformed a weed-strewn lawn into a lush garden.
It worked, for a while. Then the park started slipping again. Many residents and entrepreneurs are frustrated that they are not getting more help from the parks department. “It’s neglected,” said Alysha Lewis, a former local community council president. “The parks department really treats it like it’s a stepchild.”
Sandra Dupal, who owns a bakery, offered in 2017 to pay a kiosk to sell sandwiches and snacks so that more people could enjoy the park. She never got a response from park officials. “The park still has untapped potential,” she says.
City park officials said they had made $11.4 million in improvements to the park since 2005 and they had plans for $21 million more in projects, including the reconstruction of a playground. They have partnered with other city services to bring homeless teams and medical vans to the area. They said they would also look into concession options.
“We are committed to improving and maintaining the park’s many features and facilities for New Yorkers of all ages to enjoy,” said Ms. Moriarty.
Only three of the original park houses are still standing. They have public bathrooms, which can be accessed from the outside. The other two houses are used for park operations, including a communications hub and substation for a park enforcement patrol. All the buildings should be handed over to the community, lawyers say, but they asked for Stanton first, in part because that section is in bad shape.
Adrian Benepe, a former city parks commissioner, said park officials had limited opportunities to find other storage space in space-starved Manhattan. “I don’t believe it’s a matter of will or money,” he said. “It’s a matter of logistics.”
But Ms. Webster and other advocates say it’s an equality issue and the Stanton house should not be used to support other Manhattan parks, including larger parks with far more resources.
In recent years, a grassroots campaign has spawned many ideas for the park home. community center. Bicycle repair station. Swimming pool. Students at Pratt Institute worked on designs that reimagined what it might look like.
Reynaldo Belen, 20, who recently graduated from a high school across the street from the park, said it should be used to bring people together. “That could stop some of the violence in the area,” he said. “You don’t always shoot someone you know or see.”
When park officials began moving supplies to the park home, Mr. Humber, the former youth worker, said he was told it was only temporary. He has since demanded that the park house be returned to the community.
“I’ve fought for this building for so long,” he said. “I hope I’m still alive when they open it.”