"Macombs Park Turf Too Hot For Them To Handle! Critics Thermometer Hits 150 Degrees" NY Daily News 8/8/9
Click the title above to read the article at the Daily News site. It includes an admission by Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe that this is a problem, which is a switch from downplaying the issue which seems to have been Parks policy up to this point.
posted by * @ 1:11 PM
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Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Patrick Arden/Metro New York
Four years ago Mayor Bloomberg stood with the New York Yankees and promised "a dramatic improvement" in South Bronx parks after the team grabbed 25 acres of parkland for a new stadium. Now the community is dealing with this improvement.
As the first installment in the long-delayed replacement plan, a single athletic field quietly opened last month on the roof of an unfinished parking garage.
Baseball, soccer, football and track all crowded onto the field Saturday.
While a cool breeze was blowing on a partly cloudy day in the mid-70s, the artificial turf field was 147.5 degrees.
"You can see the heat waves," noted jogger Jared Davis, 20.
The lanes of a temporary track ran in front of both soccer goals. "How can we use the track when there's a game?" asked Jose Aguirre, 34.
"It's too hot," complained Willie Best, a retired corrections officer who's coaching a Bronx Colts youth football team. "And when this turf gets wet, the kids slide and hurt themselves. Our first day here, a kid broke his ankle."
Best didn't like sharing space, afraid a baseball might bean one of his players. "They're not supposed to be here," he said, pointing to a "No Hardball Playing" sign.
"Where are we supposed to go?" replied batter Lionel Lewis, 20, as he used a construction cone for a tee. "They took our fields." *
"A dramatic improvement."
Mayor Bloomberg on the parkland swap in June 2005. The new parks will be complete in 2011.
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