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Posted by
Gold_12th
on Tue Jul 22 15:47:20 2014
edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Editorial on getting more buses to Randall's Island
Smack in the middle of the city there’s a recreation paradise where athletic fields, tennis courts, bikeways, lawns and other wonders abound — almost unknown.
It’s time for New Yorkers to enjoy the fast-improving jewel of Randall’s Island. It’s time for the Parks Department to spread the good word and for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to vastly improve bus service.
Located in the East River between Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx and attached to Ward’s Island, Randall’s is just out of reach to most New Yorkers without cars. That must change.
Once home to the world’s largest mental hospital, Randall’s and Ward’s have been merged by landfill in the eight decades since state law decreed that the property be dedicated as parkland.
For years, it functioned despite that decree as something like a city junk drawer — home to assorted functions from a range of government agencies. But bit by bit, the green space has been reclaimed.
The mental hospital is a shadow of its former self. Shelters housing 1,000 homeless men remain.
The city’s Sanitation Department removed an unauthorized training lot. Amtrak spent millions to secure the bottom of the railroad’s Hell Gate Bridge, which was falling apart.
After clearing away the detritus, the city and state, with the help of private citizens, have built some beautiful things. The results are stunning:
Amateur sportsmen and women can find New York’s largest collection of baseball diamonds and soccer fields.
There’s the 20-court Sportime Tennis Center, where Noah Rubin, who just became the Wimbledon junior champion, trains.
Most famously, Randall’s is home to the 5,000-seat Icahn Stadium, the only track in America to meet International Amateur Athletic Federation standards.
As they say, but wait, there’s more: a golf center; horseback riding (don’t tell NYCLASS), and even a working urban farm where barley, rice, tomatoes, grapes and more are grown and harvested by schoolkids.
Want to go? We don’t blame you. But how to get there? There’s the rub.
Without a car, there are three ways: by a footbridge from East Harlem, by trash-strewn Triborough Bridge sidewalks, or by riding the only bus that goes there, the M35. No offense to the homeless men who pack the buses to and from shelters on the island, but it’s not a pleasant ride.
The city Economic Development Corp. is close to finishing a new footbridge from the South Bronx, and the MTA refurbished a very long walkway to Astoria, Queens.
Good, but not good enough. The MTA needs to clean up both its disgusting Triborough foot access and the M35 — and add new bus service from the three adjoining boroughs.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/island-time-forgot-article-1.1863863
The editorial “The island that time forgot” (July 14) (above) said, “No offense to the homeless men who pack the buses to and from shelters on the island, but it’s not a pleasant ride.”
How can that statement be understood as anything other than offensive?
The M35 bus is not a pleasant ride, that’s a fact. So why preface a factual statement with a claim of not offending us, unless you’re slyly equating homeless men to unpleasantness, as well as drawing a thin line differentiating yourselves from shelter residents? Does this snide comment come from someone puffed up with airs, who feels entitled to figuratively look down and literally turn their nose up at others who are less fortunate?
I’m a homeless man, and the M35 ride is just as unpleasant for me as it is for someone with a place to call home. “The MTA needs to clean up” the M35 for all of us. Maybe some homeless men contribute to the M35 route not being bus ride of the year, but then so do some non-homeless youth who subject passengers to a high-volume loop of the B-word, F-word, N-word and other words that even a family newspaper can’t clean up.
Next time, try not to insult an entire population of vulnerable individuals in one sentence just to improve a 10-minute trip. Dennis Francis
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/july-21-broken-windows-waste-transfer-woes-derek-jeter-article-1.1872582
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