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WPCNR GREEN GAZETTE. A Letter from former Councilman Bill King to the White Plains Commoun Council shared with The CitizeNetReporter. April 25, 2011:
Happy Easter/Passover. I’m writing this open letter to you to bring to your attention our beautiful local natural areas and what can be done to increase public appreciation and use of them at – I’m sure you’ll like this – low cost.
As some of you know, like many others I like to bike and still do. In the last few years I tried bike-commuting to Manhattan and wound up doing it 1,2, 3, 4 and sometimes all 5 days a week. At 25 miles each way it was easy to keep track of the miles and I shot for and reached 4,000 miles one year, 3,000 miles the next.
It was convenient to ride down Route 22 through Scarsdale and Eastchester and then cut across Bronxville and Yonkers and the northern Bronx into northern Manhattan where I could take the Hudson River Bike Path down to where I have been working on the Lincoln Center modernization project (I’m now in the process of switching to the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn which I haven’t attempted to commute to … yet).
I also, like many others, like to walk. Last fall, I decided to visit some of the parks in and an around White Plains which I hadn’t been to in several years, to see how they were doing. I started with Liberty Park and the adjacent Silver Lake Park.
The Clean-up Man
As some of you know, I did litter cleanups there back in the early ’00’s when I was on the Common Council, with my daughter’s girl scout troop and other volunteers, mostly because I think the natural areas in White Plains and the surrounding area are so much more beautiful and interesting than where I grew up in suburban Chicago and also because I hate litter, especially when it spoils what is otherwise a beautiful landscape.
As some of you may remember, Arlo Guthrie once sang about the time he littered and it got a lot of attention. I’ve done the reverse – picking up litter – sometimes to draw the attention of public officials.
When John Bailey photographed us cleaning up the area which is now Liberty Park, the county exec’s assistant, Larry Schwartz, being Larry Schwartz, sent a strongly-worded letter to Mayor Delfino that if I trespassed on county property again I’d be arrested. Long story short, it’s now a park.
Silver Lake/Liberty Park Today– Dismayed.
Silver Lake Park is so dramatic with its abrupt rocky hills and outcroppings and the lake below. It reminds me of what one might find in Europe or California. Anyways, on my first walk I was dismayed to see the shoreline on the White Plains side of the lake overwhelmed with litter and ‘floatables’ including baseballs, soccer balls, lacrosse balls, you name it that winds up in the lake from West Harrison’s park. I couldn’t leave it just sit there and came back with some trash bags. And then I kept coming back and coming back.
It was great exercise hauling filled trash bags from farther and farther up the shore back to the waste receptacles at Liberty Park. At first I tried to keep the recyclables separate from the other trash but there was just so much trash that I didn’t always have the patience. For 5-6 weeks it became a weekly routine. I’d pick up 10-20 bags of trash and the WP Sanitation Dept. would pick up the bags I’d left at Liberty. One time a nice couple helped bring the trash bags back and fished things out of the lake along with me. People generally say ‘Thank You’ when they see what you’re doing.
I finally got to the point I’d felt I’d ‘done’ Silver Lake Park – couldn’t find any more litter – my last ‘gig’ there was when I found the mother lode of tires and other trash in the northern part of the park and assembled a huge pile for the County to pick up. I wanted to check out other parks in White Plains. I next checked out the Greenway.
The Greenway-D’Elia Condition
Walking along the Greenway I’d pick up some litter and then some more and then some more and I started bringing my trash bags again. And, again, I’d carry back the trash to the two places where there were trash receptacles, on Bryant and on Ridgeway and pile up stuff next to it. I used the recycling side of the receptacle on Gedney (we need more of these all around town – they’re a great idea).
When the Greenway started to look OK, I checked out the adjacent D’Elia property, the beautiful forested area next to the Greenway which,(Councilman) Ben (Boykin)remembers, the City bought back, when he and I were on the Council, from the developer the City originally sold the land to. I wanted to see what the City had done with the area since I left the Council – answer, to my dismay, nothing.
A Pattern Emerges
I walked in and, you might see a pattern here, I started picking up trash – the usual, beer bottles and cans going back to the 60’s and other assorted ‘stuff’. I would haul bags all the way back to Ridgeway. Then I discovered some bigger objects like a grocery cart, tires, sheets of corrugated metal and then, to my true dismay, a pile of long metal 2X8’s and 2X12’s, what have you, that are used (or used to be used) in some kind of construction, probably left there by the developer (D’Elia) that we had bought the land back from.
D’Elia– As Is.
This was a piece of work. I guess the City, as part of its due diligence when we paid $M’s for the land, should have insisted the land came without the construction materials. I started carrying and then dragging the heavy steel beams up the hill and stacked them under the old railroad trestle off of Coralyn where I’d put the grocery cart, tires, etc. It took several weekends.
I saved the heaviest (longest, widest) beams for last and they were not easy dragging them out of there foot by foot. By late Nov./early Dec. I’d dragged everything out of there and notified the City. I started taking pictures of my piles at this and other parks which I’ll get to – it’s a rogue’s gallery. I think it was in March when the City came with a truck, maybe two trucks to haul all the stuff out.
One of the neighbors on Coralyn, Theresa Madea (sp?), who I met, told me about it. She said the City workers came in a pickup and then came back with a bigger truck. I met her and a few of the other neighbors when I was bringing wood chips from the City landfill to build a wood chip trail into the park, which I’ll get to in a little bit.
Jack Harrington Park
With the D’Elia property (may I suggest a name for the area? I cast my vote for Harrington Park after Jack Harrington who first took me to see it with my young daughter in a baby carrier on my back – I shot video of the land as narrated by Jack to show the others on the Common Council. And it wasn’t that long before we and the Mayor got the land back in City hands, a truly proud moment.)
Ridgeway Nature Trail–Same Findings
I thought, well, there was more trash than I expected at D’Elia, let me check out another, more pristine natural area like the Ridgeway Nature Trail behind Ridgeway School, then I won’t have to pick up litter, I can just enjoy a nice walk in the woods. Boy, was I wrong. It’s a beautiful area, one I’d only briefly walked in once before. But, as is my way, I started seeing trash in the forest which in the winter was easier to spot – tires, the usual, lots of beer and other bottles, etc.
I discovered also that in the area of the property right behind the ballfield to the south people have dumped larger objects like hot water heaters. Try as I might, they’re too heavy to budge – I’d roll them through the forest if I could.
I built two more trash piles. The bigger of the two was behind the backstop of the south ballfield – the City finally picked it up at my request. The other pile was/is along the nature trail itself.
Over the Fence With It
It was during my cleanup over several weekends here during the winter that I noticed that people who live next to parks (I’d noticed this at Silver Lake Park as well) tend to heave stuff over their back fences into the park. Maybe this was a bigger thing back in earlier times but I’ve noticed current day examples, too.
When you’re cleaning up City-owned property you don’t want to feel like you’re cleaning something that someone has just dumped or will continue to dump. My feeling is the fine for dumping on City-owned land should either be increased into the thousands of dollars from whatever it is now (is it still $50? – see example of a City sign below or in one of the other emails) or, like Arlo Guthrie in Alice’s Restaurant, the fine is that you have to pick up your litter. Or both.
Whatever it takes. I personally can’t envision ever dumping trash, either on my own property or on public property – so don’t ask me to explain the psychology of why certain people do it. Once, when I was fortunate enough to lead a group cleanup, when I was on the Common Council, of the Bronx River area by the train station with CityYear and office workers from Pepsico taking the day off work to do a public service project, Mayor Delfino asked me how all the trash got there. I never have an answer for that one.
I was really getting to know the Ridgeway Nature Trail area for the first time. I discovered some really neat ‘ruins’ as well as stone dams and an old stone bridge across the tributary of the Mamaroneck River that starts somewhere behind Stepinac and winds around Reynal Park and behind Hillair on its way to Scarsdale and Saxon Woods. I’ve attached a picture.
I never knew White Plains had such interesting artifacts from yesteryear. I hopped across stones in the brook and hiked through the City-owned forest on the other side, between Kenneth Road in Reynal Park and Hillair Circle, which connects with the D’Elia property. I envision a wood-chip walking trail between the two so that more residents and others will be encouraged to walk through this area. I would hope the neighbors won’t mind.
Chips Could Form a Trail Winding through city
Rather than just ‘envisioning’ the trail, I’ve started building it with, as I mentioned, bags of wood chips I’ve filled at the City landfill and brought to the gateway at Coralyn. The trail starts just west of the railroad trestle, passes underneath it (which, thanking the City again, is now cleared out), and goes into the forest and down the hill, the same hill that I dragged the steel beams up. The trail stops in the middle of the forest after it crosses a small stream. I’d like it to continue and to have other walking trails throughout this area – a group public service project waiting to happen.
A very helpful City worker who runs the show at the landfill on Saturdays, Jacquay Mantzer (I must be mis-spelling something), who is an excellent, excellent face of the City who you should all introduce yourselves to, who, after seeing me show up for 4-5 weekends in a row and asking me what all the wood chips were for (a trail in a City park), suggested I contact his boss and have a load of chips dumped at the site.
I haven’t called his boss yet but would like to when I have the time to keep working on the trail, possibly with others. The thing that keeps running through my mind, though, is that bringing wood chips to a forest is like bringing sand to the beach. There are so many downed trees and brush piles which the City could put through a wood chipper right there for the chips. The brush piles should be cleaned up – it would open up the park and improve sightlines and make the forest seem less menacing and hence more ‘user-friendly’. Teresa M. asked that the brush piles in front of the railroad trestle be cleared out for starters. Let’s put the City’s wood chipper(s) to work!
So, with the Ridgeway Nature Trail area pretty much cleaned up, except for the hot water heaters which I asked the City to remove but still sit there (at least the large pile of trash was finally picked up), I moved onto the most centrally-located yet anonymous and, to me, mysterious city ‘parks’, Bryant-Mamaroneck Park.
Bryant-Mamaroneck Park–A Sad Discovery
I’d walked in it once or twice before. When I was on the Council, I said to Mayor Delfino and George Gretsas, his assistant, that the park didn’t even have a sign saying what it was, much less a gate to get into it – it is fenced off on all sides – the only place to get in is where the fence has fallen down. The mayor did have a sign put on the fence – and I had hoped other improvements were to follow – I’d suggested picnic tables … and an entryway.
They haven’t happened.
It is the oddest way to enter a city park – you feel like a vagrant being seen going into it. And vagrants have pretty much been the only ones to use it over the years. But with being so little-noticed or used I figured this park would finally be the most pristine of the ones I’d checked out.
It turned out to be the exact opposite. I’ll just attach a picture of all the trash I hauled out and put next to the fence on the Bryant Avenue side near the Bryant Gardens complex (promptly picked up by the City at my request) and leave it at that.
The area used to be used as a dump by New York Hospital I believe. I picked up a lot of broken glass there, a lot. There were beer cans and tires and the usual ‘heavy metal objects’. There were still spray paint cans left behind by 1970’s era graffiti artists who painted stuff on the wall between the park and Burke. I picked it all up – everything I saw. But there are still a lot of old bricks and ceramic tiles in the hospital dump area of the park. There is also the granddaddy of all hot water heaters/boilers that I told the City about on the west bank of the stream on the Mamaroneck Ave. side of the park that the City should truck out of there at some point.
Talks with New Mayor
It was at this point I met Mayor Roach the day after his election and when Tom asked me what I was doing, I told him about the park cleanup kick I’d been on. The way I’ve let City Hall know about where to pick up piles of trash is through the city’s website, using the ‘Contact City Hall’ icon. You fill out a form and press send. I believe the first time I wrote in I got a subsequent email response that my request (for trash pickup) had been forwarded to the appropriate city department for action and response but I have never heard anything from the city – nothing, zip.
I believe government, in addition to being open, should do things to inspire private citizens to do civic-minded things (Ask not what your city can do for you, ask what you can do for your city), but I’ve never felt inspired by City Hall. Instead, as I mentioned to Tom, I’ve been inspired by people like Pat Tillman, the former NFL player who did different things for exercise, and after 9/11, signed up with the Army with his brother, to fight in Afghanistan, and then got killed by friendly fire. I hope things change from the City’s perspective. Getting some kind of a response to a website request would be a small, tiny start.
Tom and I briefly discussed the Greenway, the northern part where there is no walking trail, the part north of Gedney. I said it would be nice if the City could extend the walking trail north, cutting through the downed tree limbs, etc. The following weekend I started cleaning it. The area between Bolton and Gedney Way is now virtually completely clean with two large piles of trash assembled just north of a large brush pile just north of Sam’s parking lot. A lot of tires and a few grocery carts and other large metal stuff. This time I was able to roll a hot water heater down the strip of right-of-way to one of the piles which I’ve asked the City to pick up as well as put the wood brush pile through the chipper.
Not a Magnet for Drinking.
During my cleaning on two weekends there I met several of the neighbors from Gedney Terrace and Pleasant Ave., curious as to who the guy was cleaning up the swamp-like area behind their houses wearing hip waders (I bought them for soggy litter cleanups like this one – have never used them to do fly fishing). The neighbors were nice and told me about the various wildlife they’ve seen – turtles, foxes, etc. … but they didn’t want the Greenway trail coming behind their backyards for fear criminals would use it to break into their houses – one resident told me how the previous owner had been broken into more than once.
I didn’t want to get into a debate about walking trails being related to crime but I’m sensitive to their concern and, I thought, why push the idea of a continuous Greenway trail when at this point of the old railroad right-of-way, it is level with the houses on each side and the area gets swampy and virtually impassable anyway (unless you’re wearing hip waders).
I believe the surface water comes from an underground stream or spring. It then flows through a storm drain north under Bolton Ave. One thing I did when I was there was move some stones out of in front of the storm drain which were causing the water to stagnate behind it – a mosquito-breeding ground. This helped somewhat. More could be done – with shovels, not bull-dozers – I’m not sure whether the neighbors like having a swamp behind their houses or not – but it should be better drained.
Dumping Signs Not Enforced?
One of the neighbors, who owns a landscaping business (which uses wood chippers) and lives on Bolton told me how people hang out where the street passes over the railroad right-of-way there and dump beer cans, etc. over the side (I picked up a lot). He pointed to the $50 dumping fine sign from the 1940’s that does nothing. He said he was going to install video cameras on the back of his house to catch illegal dumpers in the act. I think with today’s technology this is actually not that expensive.
He said he got the City to landscape the area and put wood chips down outside the fence on each side of Bolton – it now looks nice. He then showed me the part of the Greenway north of Bolton and with a sweep of his hand said, “You want to see a badly trashed area? Look here. The City never cleans this area up.” This last section of the Greenway was next on my list.
Gulf Station Dump
This brings me to today’s email to City Hall, and this separate email to you all, about a trash pile I have just amassed yesterday behind the Gulf Station at Mamaroneck & Bryant. I have spent the last two weekends cleaning the stretch between Bryant and Bolton. I accessed the right-of-way by walking through the lower level of the new parking garage behind Mamaroneck, stepping over the 3-1/2-foot railing behind the Gulf Station and walking around the fence and then down through the old railroad tunnel under Bryant. I’ve attached pictures of before and after my cleanup. Whenever you first come upon a trash-strewn area it hits you and this was the most dramatic area scenically and the worst area trash-wise I’d seen.
I have cleaned up about two-thirds of this stretch leaving the part closest to Bolton to the City or until the fall/early winter if the City hasn’t gotten to it by then. I hauled out five grocery carts, piles of tires, an old microwave oven, a typewriter, you name it. This part of the right-of-way, where I’m convinced nobody ever goes, except some squatters from long ago, is cut through rock in a dramatic gorge. The stream from south of Bolton goes through it and was very backed-up with trash and debris which had been thrown over the fence on Bryant or had washed up there over the years.
I cleaned this area out first, hoping the whole area would drain better and so be easier to clean up stream. I’ve also thrown numerous logs and branches out of the water upstream to help the area drain better. Trash thrown out of back yards has helped to clog things up. There are a few houses along Mamaroneck Ave. that have used the right-of-way as their own personal dumping ground, too much for a volunteer to feel like cleaning up – they have to be made to clean up their mess, pay a fine or both and stop dumping in the future. The same goes for the condo apartment building at 2 Overlook – shrubbery, Christmas trees, and maybe the shopping carts and other objects came from it.
A Walking Trail
Could this section of the old railroad right-of-way be a walking trail? Yes, definitely. It is too visually dramatic to not be used by the public. The stream can be channeled better and unblocked without too much effort – again, think shovels, not bulldozers. The area would be most easily accessed from a wood chip trail from Pleasant Ave. where it is less steep through the City-owned forest there on the east side of the street. Possibly steps or a ramp could also be built up the embankment under the Bryant bridge to the City’s parking lot at the north end. Two large storm drain sections, dropped at the base of the bridge but not installed, should be hoisted out as they serve no purpose but to blight the area.
I think the area could be quite a unique walkway – it gives one a true appreciation of the level of effort put into the old Boston & Westchester Railroad, from the deep, deep culvert at the north end to the high embankment of the Greenway at the south end of town, an engineering marvel (the old commuter railroad was electrified too – amazing that it’s all gone – including its ‘mini-Grand Central’ station where the Westchester Mall is now).
I hope this email has been illuminating. I learned many things about our environs I never knew before, including the time I was on the Council, and I hope this information will assist you as you serve on a more environmentally-aware and hopefully also a more environmentally-active council.
I hope you have a good Earth Day week’s worth of activities. Jack Harrington has asked me to assist him with a Greenway talk next weekend which I will join him for if I can make it. I’m now in the final week of helping my daughter who is now a senior in high school choose a college. But after one Earth Week there’s till 51 more Earth weeks in the year when things should keep happening.
I think because I have lived in White Plains twenty years this year, having moved to WP in 1991, (and no, like people have kept asking me, I never moved away during this time), and waiting for certain things to happen, I’ve realized some things won’t happen unless you do them yourself. But I hope that the City will at long last, under a new environmentally-thinking mayor and an equally proactive council, truly make its beautiful natural spaces accessible and inviting to use by the general public.
