Go play on the freeway: Parks and ballfields owned by the city are locked up tight
Monday, August 23rd 2010, 4:00 AM
At least 19 city-owned ballfields are locked up under the largely exclusive control of Little Leagues, youth groups and sports clubs, a Daily News survey shows.
"It's pretty harsh because if we want to play baseball, it's locked," said Sheck Mulbah, 12, who says the Shea Friendship field in Marcus Garvey Park is the only diamond near his East Harlem home.
"Some people aren't great at baseball, like me, and want to get better but can't because the field's locked," he said, adding that his poor skills would make him embarrassed to join the Harlem Little League, which uses the field.
The Harlem Little League is one of 24 groups around the city that have the right to lock their fields in exchange for doing basic cleaning and maintenance. The groups remove graffiti, mow the grass, paint and buy insurance.
In exchange, they keep the proceeds from their concessions and lock the gates when they're not playing ball.
The News visited all 24 fields - including baseball diamonds, soccer fields and a roller hockey rink - and found 19 locked or closed to the public.
The five others are open but used by the groups during peak hours - including one that's leased to a tony suburb. The Town of Pelham has dibs on a soccer and baseball field near the Bronx border with Westchester County.
"It's a public park, and it's not really fair for only one group to be able to use it," said Cheryl Huber of New Yorkers for Parks.
In a city strapped for playing space, teams are supposed to post signs telling community members how to access the fields, but The News saw signs at just four of the 19 locked fields.
The News also made numerous attempts to get permits for fields but met with great difficulties. Messages left in permit offices went unreturned. Online permit applications fared no better.
A woman who answered the phone in the Queens sports permit office told a reporter posing as someone trying to book a field it generally takes 30 days to get a permit, and permits are granted only for competitive play. "It has to be an official game," she said.
In the Bronx, meanwhile, when a reporter asked about a field controlled by a Little League group, she was told the "field is under a management agreement" and could not get a permit.
First Deputy Parks Commissioner Liam Kavanagh said the groups save the city money and routinely make the fields available to schools and community organizations.
"These are neighborhood organizations that are serving kids from those communities," he said. "They help us maintain facilities at a pretty high standard."
Some community members applaud the arrangement.
"It's good they keep it locked - otherwise the younger kids could find broken glass and drug paraphernalia," said Peter DeCarlo, 47, who was throwing a ball with his son near the locked Frank Schnurr ballfield in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, last week.
The Bronx field leased to the Pelham Little League was unused until the suburban town inquired about it in 2003, Kavanagh said.
Fred Fiorito, head of facilities for the Town of Pelham, said his crews transformed a rodent-infested swamp covered with trash and toxic waste into a local asset.
"We took a field that was unplayable and an eyesore and turned it into something nice," he said. "We put hundreds of thousands of dollars into it."
With Jake Pearson, Joe Jackson,
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