A Park Fit For The Elderly And Infirm

Parkgoers at Brooklyn’s Empire-Fulton Ferry Park are happy to be able to enjoy an open space were virtually everything is forbidden:

“They need to lighten up,” said John Soster, 39, a teacher and cyclist from Bushwick who was reprimanded for walking — not riding — his bike through the park last summer.

“I’ve been chastised,” he added. “What are they so uptight about?”

Another parkgoer told the Daily News she has seen rangers tell kids to stop playing ball – and teenagers complained they’ve been scolded for running around in the park.

“A couple of my friends and I were told to stop running and horsing around or we’d have to leave,” said Kenyon Harris, 17, who now avoids the state park because of the rules.

Empire-Fulton Ferry also has rules against commercial photography and filming, both of which require a permit. Parkgoers said hard-nosed park rangers can take this regulation too far.

Louis Benitez, 31, a Queens marketing manager, said a ranger made him put away his hand-held video camera Рeven though he was just filming his fianc̩e and passing boats.

“I was like, ‘Come on. It’s just for our leisure,'” said Benitez, who recently was forced out of the park because he was there with his friend’s dog. “They’re pretty strict.”

. . .

On Sunday, The News chronicled the widespread frustration that the Empire-Fulton Ferry closes its park at dusk — and even earlier. Parkgoers charged they are often abruptly kicked out at one of the nicest times of the day. At least one day last week, the park closed at 6:30 p.m.

Following an inquiry by The News, a state parks spokeswoman said they “were looking to expand” the hours to 11 p.m., at least on weekends.

Community Board 2 district manager Robert Perris said he has gotten complaints about the strict rules at Empire-Fulton Ferry — and the sometimes overly aggressive rangers.

“They sometimes treat people like they’re doing something really wrong for relatively minor things,” said Perris. “The response can seem much heavier than the ‘crime.'”

Let’s Return The Competitive Eating Championship Where It Belongs: The Good ‘Ol Girth-Loving U. S. Of A.

A promising young American is poised to reclaim the competitive eating mantle in the world-famous Nathan’s hot dog-eating contest:

Joey Chestnut, a journeyman on the competitive-eating circuit, stunned the world — and maybe put a scare into five-time world hot dog–eating champion Takeru Kobayashi — by setting a new American record just two months before the annual July 4 contest at Nathan’s in Coney Island.

“This is the greatest thing to happen in the history of American sports,” said Richard Shea, president of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, the governing body of all stomach-centered sports.

“Chestnut’s accomplishment may change the course of a nation.”

. . .

As a result of nearly a decade of Japanese domination at our national pastime on our national holiday, many Americans believe that the Mustard Yellow International Belt will always be worn by a foreigner.

Hot Dog-Eating Contest Obstacle May Become Oral History Barn

The Brooklyn Paper reports (.pdf) that the Army Recruiting office on Stillwell Avenue may become a sort of Coney Island StoryCorps:

A tin-roofed Coney Island war machine is on its way to becoming a time machine.

The family that built and operates the neighborhood’s biggest amusement empire wants to convert a battered U.S. Army Recruiting Center on Stillwell Avenue into recording studio for the oral history of one of Brooklyn’s most-historic, and certainly freakiest, areas.

“People have so many memories to share about the Cyclone, the Winder Wheel and well, everything that happened under the Boardwalk, too,” said Coney Island Voices founder Carol Albert, whose father-in-law took [sic] bought the legendary Cyclone coaster in the 1960s.

The black tin shack has stood in the middle of Stillwell Avenue for as long as anyone can remember. Although it was an active recruiting station until last year, it is mostly known as an obstruction to the annual hot dog-eating contest at Nathan’s across the street.

The recruiters’ relocation to a nearby storefront has paved the way for their old station to be, well, paved.

A source said the Coney Island Voices “studio” would be mobile so it could be tucked away to accommodate the overflow crowds at the annual July 4 frankfest.

“Quick Change” Developing

A novel approach to encouraging neighborhood-friendly developments (.pdf):

Bruce Ratner would get hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds if he builds less at Atlantic Yards, under a new state Assembly bill.

Assemblyman Jim Brennan (D-Park Slope) has proposed capping the total size of Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development at 5.85 million square feet — down from the 8.7 million square feet in the current project, which features 17 skyscrapers, 6,900 units of housing, retail and office space, a hotel and a 19,000-seat arena for the relocated New Jersey Nets.

To compensate Ratner for the smaller project, Brennan’s bill would give the developer the Atlantic Yards site for free, rather than charging him $100 million for it. The MTA had appraised the site at $214 million.

In addition, Brennan’s bill would relieve Ratner of his obligation to renovate the Long Island Rail Road yard, saving him another $200 million, the assemblyman said.

Brennan’s bill would also require the state — rather than Ratner himself — to subsidize the 50-percent of the project that Ratner agreed to set aside as affordable housing.

“This bill is like negotiating with a hijacker,” said
Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for the anti-Atlantic
Yards group, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.

“Brennan is saying, ‘OK, OK, here’s some money. Just don’t build it so big!’ He’s throwing money at a developer to not build something he hasn’t even gotten the right to build yet.”

(That’s how that all works . . .)

The Lapskaus That Is This Vibrant City Is That Much Less Rich Without Her

The Brooklyn Paper reports (.pdf) that the borough’s declining Norwegian population doomed this year’s Miss Norway competition:

Thanks to a stunning shortage of Viking descendents, the venerable Miss Norway of Greater New York pageant has been cancelled — meaning
that this Sunday’s 52nd annual Norwegian-American 17th of May Parade in Bay Ridge will have no sash-wearing, tiara-topped queen riding up Fifth Avenue in a convertible.

“It’s sad,” said Josephine Beckmann, district manager of Community Board 10. “It’s going to be a emptier without Miss Norway.”

The fault, as Shakespeare said, lies not in our stars, but in our selves. Norwegian-American population in Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights has shrunk so dramatically that finding eager contestants has become as difficult as finding a bowl of fish pudding. Of course, it wasn’t always that way.

“At one time, Bay Ridge was all Norwegian,” said Ken
Johnson, chair of the parade committee. “Eighth Avenue
was known as ‘Lapskaus Boulevard,'” a reference to a beloved Norwegian salted meat stew.

In 1940, nearly 35,000 Norwegians or Norwegian descendents lived in Brooklyn, mostly in Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights.

Now, according to the 2000 Census, there are only 2,900.