WGPA

McCarren Park has long been poised for a rebirth, and this meeting is an important step in ensuring that what happens to our park happens with our input.

From OSA & GWAPP:

Hey McCarren Park user!

You use the park. You want it to be better. You’re not alone. Share your ideas on Monday March 3 (7pm @ Auto High Library).

The best way to get the parks we deserve is through persistent community attention to each park. GWAPP (Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks & Planning) is helping kickstart a big (and sustained) Push for Parks all across our North Brooklyn neighborhoods to create (where one doesn’t exist) support (where one does exist) and unite (where, as with McCarren Park, several active groups co-exist) park-specific Friends Groups.

The purpose of these groups will be to gather information about the way the community uses the parks, the issues and needs of each park and to establish a community representatives for each park, who persistently push for improvements – whether from the city, the Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn (www.openspacealliancenb.org), neighbors, local businesses, grants…

This is the initial meeting of what, for now, might be called the United Friends of McCarren Park. With the improvements planned for McCarren Park's Pool/Ice Skating Rink and Skate Park, this is the time to plan for additional improvements throughout the entire McCarren Park. We need to make sure we have a unified and coherent voice in the way the park is maintained and plans are made for future developments.

With the Pool reconstruction underway (design-wise at least) it seems the various user-groups of this potentially wonderful park have a shared purpose. Let’s use it to make the park better.

Here’s a proposed (and very preliminary) agenda:

• Request a comprehensive survey & study of park usage & potential improvements
• McCarren Park Pool – reconstruction status update
• Pool-adjacent “Comfort Stations” – can these be built first?
• Fieldhouse “Comfort Stations” – the most disgusting bathrooms in Brooklyn?
• Wading/Spray Pool – what can be done to have this running by summer?
• Benches & Paths
• Natural turf conditions
• Gardens & Trees
• Dog Run(s)
• Plan to artificially turf paved field next to tennis courts
• Plan to study de-mapping Driggs and/or Union Ave. through the park
• Concerts, Films & other programming
• Other issues & needs?

WHEN: Monday, March 3 at 7pm

WHERE: Automotive High School Library (Bedford Ave. across from McCarren ballfields, next to tennis courts)

Everyone interested in working together to improve McCarren Park is welcome!