June 1: Hike the Heights!

How well do you know your neighborhood?  How well do you know your city?

 

On Saturday, June 1st, you are invited to join 2,000+ neighbors for Hike the Heights! 

 

From the organizers:

This community event brings together residents of Northern Manhattan to explore the area's diverse parks and to share a (free!) communal meal.

 

There are guided hikes leaving from several locations in the morning (see attached) and a community celebration will begin at 11am in the Sunken Playground at Highbridge Park (167th and Edgecomb).

 

If you are unable to join a guided hike at one of the times noted on the flyer, feel free to walk the trail with your family and friends. Giraffe statues provided by Creative Arts Workshops for Kids will line the path.

 

Please join for the hikes, celebration, or both!

 

Because this is a community event, it's free and open to everyone. If you would like to support the event, or to learn more, please visit: https://ioby.org/project/hike-heights-2013.

Recycle Your Christmas Tree

You can put your Christmas Tree on the curb for pick-up by the NYC Department of Sanitation.  Or you can bring it to the Parks Department's annual "mulchfest" at numerous locations around the City.  Our local spot will be Bennett Park on Saturday January 7 and Sunday January 8 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Eyesore of the Week

A picturesque view of the Palisades (from Ft. Tryon Park) at sunset is marred by a Key Food plastic bag entangled in a tree.

A single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to degrade.
- via reusit.com

Americans use and dispose of 100 billion plastic shopping bags each year
and at least 12 million barrels of oil are used per year in the
manufacture of those plastic grocery bags.
- The Wall Street Journal (via inspirationgreen.com)

Sunday 10/23 - Fall Bulb Planting Jubilee

From The Friends Committee of the Fort Tryon Park Trust:

Fort Tryon Park - Fall Bulb Planting Jubilee!

Sunday, October 23 Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Location: Meet at Margaret Corbin Circle, at the end of Fort Washington Avenue.

If you don't want to plant, there is always English ivy to trim.

Visit our volunteers table at the entrance to the park to sign up. We supply all tools and work gloves. All ages are welcome. Stay for refreshments afterward. Heavy rain cancels.

A-train to 190th stop. Elevator to street. Right to the park up the stairs. M4 bus to 190th Subway station / across Margaret Corbin Circle.

Dirty Air: Boilers to Blame

Outdated heating systems in residential buildings in New York City are responsible for a large share of the citys' air pollution, including particulate matter that can aggravate asthma conditions.  Here is a letter from Borough President Scott Stringer, which refers to his recent report on the subject.  As the diagram below shows, nothern Manhattan has a concentration of these facilities.

I wanted to share with you an important new report my office has just released, “Tenants and Toxins: Converting Dirty Boilers in New York City’s Affordable Housing Stock.”
Of all the environmental problems facing New York City, few are as damaging to our public health as the 8,900 buildings that burn #4 or #6 heating oil throughout the city.  Although these “dirty boilers” represent just 1 percent of our building stock, they account for a whopping 86 percent of the city’s soot pollution.  To put that in context, the Environmental Defense Fund estimates that burning #4 and #6 heating oil produces fifty percent more air pollution than all of the cars and trucks in New York City.

This is a problem that must be fixed.  But until now not enough attention has been focused on the unique financial challenges that replacing these boilers will pose for many buildings – especially those with rent regulated units, a vital source of affordable housing in our city.

As many of you know, rent regulated buildings face severe limitations when it comes to paying for capital improvements like boiler conversions.  What my study found is less known: Roughly two-thirds of all dirty boilers in the city are located in rent regulated buildings, where they pose both environmental and financial risks to the tenants who live there.  The numbers are highest in Manhattan, where more than 2,200 rent regulated buildings spew this toxic soot.

We need policies that recognize these financial realities and speed the day when all of these dirty boilers – many of which are not mandated to be replaced until 2030 under the City’s current plan – can be shut down for good.  We need to provide rent regulated buildings with access to the cheap capital they need NOW, not 20 years from now.  And we need to do it in a way that protects tenants from having to carry the burden of more major capital improvements.

Over the long haul, the recommendations in my report will save buildings from spending money they don’t have, and save tenants from painful rent increases.  More importantly, they will save lives.

To learn more, read coverage in the New York Times, Crain’s or view coverage on NY 1 about our report.

I hope you have a chance to examine our findings, and please don’t hesitate to call my office if you have other ideas for improving our great city.

Sincerely,

Scott M. Stringer,
Manhattan Borough President

Deer in Northern Manhattan? Maybe if there were fewer unleashed dogs.

I stopped by the Inwood Hill Nature Center on Saturday and had a long chat with a knowledgeable NYC Park Ranger, Gerald "Jerry" Stiegler.  I wanted to know if the urban folklore about deer in northern Manhattan is true.  The answer is, sort of.

According to Ranger Jerry, he and other staff of the Center have spotted deer from time to time.  There was a doe on the fields to the west of the Center in 2010.  And a healthy buck was fatally injured by a car on the Henry Hudson Parkway last year.  Apparently deer can swim rather well and make the trip from Palisades Park across the Hudson River or from Riverdale across the Harlem River.

The biggest deterents to mammals in Inwood Hill Park are, however, dogs rather than cars.  The smell of dogs and their urine repels deer, turkeys, racoons and many other mammals that might normally inhabit large tracts of woods and fields found in Fort Tryon Park and Inwood Hill Park.  Worse, some Inwood dog owners let their dogs off the leash, which allows them to dash off into the woods and disturb and sometimes kill wildlife.  (Ranger Jerry suspects that pit bulls, popular among some Inwood residents, are the biggest offenders.)

Birds fare much better and Inwood Hill Park has healthy populations of hawks, falcons, ducks and even the occasional eagle, which can be seen floating on ice flows this time of year, looking for fish.

So where might a person find these deer?  Ranger Jerry recommends the quieter portions of the park to the west of the highway and near the Amtrak rail lines.

The Inwood Hill Nature Center is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.  The number is 212-304-2365.  Its a great place for kids.

By:  Chris Rizzo






212-304-2365
Wed-Sun 11am-4pm

Composting, Some Background and An Idea

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, yard and food waste comprise about 25% of household garbage.  Placing these materials in the municipal waste stream is not only a "waste" of useful organic material, its costly.  New York City pays up to $100 per ton to dispose of its wastes. And the City's residents (NOT including its businesses) produce up to 14,000 tons per day of household waste.  That adds up to $1,400,000 in daily costs to dispose of our wastes in landfills in OTHER states, mostly outside the Northeast.  These costs per ton don't include the salaries of NYC Department of Sanitation workers or the carbon emissions associated with trucking all that waste around the country.  Its no wonder that the NYC Department of Sanitation has been keen to increase composting in the Big Apple in the past decade.

There are, however, only a few City-run collection centers, which can be found at the City's composting website: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/compost/operations_sites.shtml.  The closest locations to Hudson Heights are at Inwood Park and Sherman Creek.  I've never visited either location.  The Cornerstone Center on Bennett Avenue has a modest compost that is open to the public.  But based on my recent visit (see photo below), its not much in use this winter.

The good news is that composting units are small and relatively inexpensive--anywhere from $50 and up.  Units like the one shown below are common in the suburbs and are raccoon proof.  (Of course, that doesn't mean they're NYC-rat proof).

The bad news is that you need an unpaved, discrete garden location for these units--where waste can decay without offending the eyes or noses of passersby.  Collegiate Church at 181st and Fort Washington Avenue might be a good location.  Or perhaps co-op or rental buildings with some backyard space can begin composting.  How about a building "compost club" where residents can pay $5 to join and utilize the building's compost bin?

By Chris Rizzo