We ask Mayor Bloomberg to keep the Parks Department from replacing the Great Lawn at Cadman Plaza Park with artificial field turf. The citizens who currently use the park will be precluded from its use while a private school will be given its exclusive use as a sports field. Natural grass must be replanted in order to preserve the ecological life of the park.
We, the undersigned, call on Mayor Bloomberg to halt the proposed installation of artificial field turf on the Great Lawn of the historic Cadman Plaza Park WWII War Memorial. The memorial lawn has been sadly neglected for many years, but its replacement with plastic grass will have a major negative impact, both environmental and aesthetic, on the only lawn area left in downtown Brooklyn.
The Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, New Yorkers for Parks and major veterans groups totaling 30,000 veterans oppose this plan and support the restoration of natural grass. They fear this plan will destroy the habitat for the parks birds including the state-protected peregrine falcons, mourning doves and saw-whet owls. They fear that this installation will destroy the health and well-being of the old growth plane trees that surround the park and end the mitigating effect natural grass has on the heat and fumes from traffic coming off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Additionally, the field-turfed space would become a de facto playing field for an elite private school and the very few who play soccer on weekends. It would be lost to the parents with small children, people and their dogs, the elderly, the special needs groups, the tourists, the war veterans, and those seeking a place for simple reflection who would enjoy the restoration of natural grass.
The Parks Department is covering New York City's green parks with plastic grass which must be fenced to stay clean at an alarming rate; this is shutting the majority of citizens out of their historic public spaces and we call on the Mayor to intervene on behalf of nature and all New Yorkers.
