Parks Department planners have been working on designs for a new and improved Luther Gulick Park — now they’ve got a bit more money to get the job done. This week, neighborhood activists learned City Councilwoman Margaret Chin has allocated an additional $400,000 (on top of $550,000 her office already earmarked for the project). Manhattan Borough President has kicked in $250,000 (last year he allocated $500,000).
All together, the Friends of Gulick Park have now raised $2,150,000 to give one of the neighborhood’s most neglected spaces a face lift. Right now, city planners are working on a design for the western half of the park (pictured). City officials have said they’ll need more money to revamp the opposite end of the park, where a playground is now the main feature. There are high hopes that the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. will come forward soon with grant money to make a complete refurbishment of Luther Gulick possible.
In a statement released today, Chin said:
Gulick Park and playground are so important to the Lower East Side community. It is paramount that we preserve and enhance open public space in this neighborhood. When I look at Gulick Park, I see the surrounding public housing, senior centers, and children and families who depend on this space to engage with their community and enjoy the outdoors.
In the past year, the Friends of Gulick Park has held a number of public visioning sessions. Park designers have said they would incorporate many of the community’s suggestions into their preliminary blueprints. The draft design will be presented to Community Board 3 in the next several months. Construction could begin as early as next summer.
Gulick Park? What is this? Do you mean Sheriff Park? Nobody that has lived as long as I knows this park by Gulick Park. where does that name come from? Sheriff Park is the real name, I think. I’ve been looking for one volunteer to help me every morning and I have never seen one, are they behind closed doors? I sometimes try to talk to people working on small private gardens next to it and they seem to be from out of space, the only thing that I have found wrong with this park and I wish I knew who it was, its someone throwing about3 bagsfull of well cut bread crumbs, and I have had to pick them up myself every morning in the corner next to Hillmans garbage bags, nobody seems to know who it is, not even cops making rounds, what about Hillmans residents who can see park from their windows? That person also brings those bags of breadcrumbs and throws them all over Ahearn Park, corner of Willet St. & Henry St. Settlement and Seward Park on Essex St., he used to throw bags next to Precinct where they are now doing some construction building, there are other parks that are worse, but most important nobody follows rules on Parks Dept signs, Seward Park says no adult should be allowed without a child and every Tom Dick and Harry is there all day, fat woman in charge wouldnt care less, library next door has had its share of child molesters, she smokes and does not care about smokers in park, they always say they don’t have money for signs and enforcement.
According to the Friends website, Luther Gulick Playground has been the official name since 1985 (before that it was Bernard Downing Playground). Sheriff Park has been the more commonly known name all long, though (a reference to Sheriff Street, which used to run where the park is now), kind of like how most Manhattanites refer to the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge as the 59th Street Bridge.