By Jon Schuppe
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Local officials and angry residents have joined forces in asking Albany to reject Gov. David Paterson’s planned cuts to Riverbank State Park in Harlem.
The cuts, part of the governor’s deficit-slashing budget proposal, would close the park’s pool, end classes for senior citizens, and shorten operating hours. All at an estimated savings of about $785,000.
Taking that money from the “beloved” park would “prove trivial to the state, yet devastating to an entire community,” three Upper Manhattan lawmakers wrote in a letter to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver this month.
Hundreds of residents rallied at the park on Saturday, accusing the state of reneging on its commitment to the facility, which was built in the early 1990s in exchange for the construction of a sewage treatment facility below it.
Nearly 900,000 people last year visited the 28-acre park, which is state Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation calls “the only one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.”
Standing 69 feet above the Hudson River — and concealing the treatment plant — the park was inspired by urban rooftop designs in Japan.
Running from West 137th Street to West 145th Street, the park includes a pool, skating rink, theater, pedestrian paths, a greenhouse, picnic areas, ball fields and courts, a gym and a running track.
When the cuts were first announced in February, Paterson, who protested the treatment plant when he was a state senator, stressed that he had to close a $8.2 billion budget gap, and that no state departments would be excluded.
“In an environment when we have to cut funding to schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and social services, no area of state spending, including parks and historic sites, could be exempt from reductions,” he said.
The spending reductions at Riverbank are part of a broader package of proposed cuts, including many complete closures, at dozens of parks and historic sites statewide. Riverbank is the only Manhattan park on the list.
In their letter to Silver, assemblymen Herman D. Farrell Jr., Keith L.T. Wright and Daniel O’Donnell, said Riverbank’s history “begs for its fervent defense.”
That defense begins now, as the state Assembly and Senate being point-by-point budget negotiations.
O'Donnell said the cuts represent "a very small amount of money, but that amount of money carries some very important messages."
The park, he said, "was put there as a part of an agreement, and we have to honor that agreement."
