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Volume XIX • Number 4 • February 2 - 8, 2012 •
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Adjoining board rejects ‘dinky rink’ plan By BRENDAN McHUGH Community Board 8 is holding a public hearing to discuss the Van Cortlandt Park ice-skating rink and will most likely pass a resolution either to support or not support the proposed rink. After the board’s meeting, the city’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee (FCRC) will have a binding vote on the rink. Community Board 8’s public hearing will be Thursday, February 2, at Manhattan College at 7:30 p.m. Last week, Community Board 12 voted against the rink, saying there wasn’t enough transparency in the project. “The little bit I’ve seen of it, it hasn’t been really good,” said Father Richard Gorman, chairman of Board 12. “There’s been a lot of controversy. The [request for proposals] process was not very transparent or fair.” Gorman compared the situation to the problem in his neighborhood, east of Van Cortlandt Park, where the city sites homeless shelters. The problems with install-
ing homeless shelters—lack of information, notice and community input—are prevalent with the rink. Throughout 2011, information withheld by the city’s parks department and the by the Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy has caused Community Board 8 to criticize the project’s merits and to go as far as saying they “deplore” the parks department’s handling of the rink. Gorman pointed out that his community wouldn’t be able to access the rink easily. “The thing is not accessible by public transportation for the rest of The Bronx,” he said. “You’d need to take multiple buses if you don’t live along the Broadway line.” The FCRC will hold a public meeting February 6 to vote on awarding the skating rink concession to Van Cortlandt Park Ice Rink, LLC, a subsidiary of Ice Rink Events, a Houston-based company that also runs The Pond at Bryant Park. The FCRC meeting will be held at 22 Reade Street in Manhattan at 2:30 p.m. More information has trickled out about the rink in the past week.
The concession will run for 15 years. In the first two years, the concessionaire pays only 5 percent of their gross receipts to the city. At year three, the concessionaire will pay the city the higher of $25,000 or 5 percent of the gross receipts. Each year, the minimum fee increases until year 15, when it reaches $44,800. All the revenue goes into the city’s general fund, a parks department spokesman said. The fees to skate time and rentals are similar to those at some skating rinks throughout the area. Monday through Friday before 6 p.m., admission is $5. After 6 p.m. and on weekends and holidays, the rates rise to $8. Skate rental is always $5. The E.J. Murray Memorial Rink in Yonkers is $7 admission and $4 for skate rentals. Wollman Rink in Central Park is at least $10.75 for adults, but $5.75 for children during the week and $6 on weekends. Skate rental is $6.75. In Queens, World Ice Arena charges $5 during the Continued on Page 2
Taxpayers to foot $8 million bill for new HH Pkwy signage
By MIAWLING LAM Road signs along the Henry Hudson Parkway will be overhauled under an ambitious $8 million traffic program. Under the proposal, several dozen traffic signs will be moved, replaced or removed completely along the parkway, starting from West 125th Street in Manhattan and extending to the Westchester County border. Authorities said the changes would improve safety, upgrade communication effectiveness, boost aesthetics, save money and cut extraneous messages currently bombarding drivers. New York State Department of Transportation officials announced their plans at a joint Community Board 8 traffic and transportation and parks meeting last Thursday. NYSDOT design supervisor Roger Weld said the project represented a shift in how officials would meet their signage requirements. “This project is intended to create a philosophical change on the Henry Hudson Parkway in terms of trying to have a more minimalistic approach,” he said. “We want to get rid of the clutter that’s out there…so we’re trying to basically cut the signing back to what’s absolutely necessary so that you don’t have so many messages barraging people.” Weld said the changes were initially born out of a need to address structural defects in overhead signs and the need to comply with new federal government signage requirements. According to the latest Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, road
signs must now be displayed in larger text to address the demands of an aging population. One of the more controversial changes,
however, is a plan to eliminate the words “Riverdale Avenue” from the overhead northbound exit signs at West 239th and West 253rd Streets.
The new ground-mounted sign would remove all references to the cross street, be narrower and feature larger text. Continued on Page 12
One of the several dozen signs to be replaced along the Henry Hudson Parkway. New York State Department of Transportation officials have proposed to remove “Riverdale Avenue” from the northbound West 239th and West 253rd Street exits.