January 12th Tour

The January 12th tour of Highland Park and the Ridgewood Reservoir was a big success and was attended by 28 people. Present were representatives from:

Brooklyn Bird Club
Brooklyn Community Board #5
Center for Law and Social Justice
Glaeser Horticultural Consulting, Inc.
Highlanders East New York United Front
Juniper Park Civic Association
Liberty Park Homeowners Association
Make the Road by Walking
NYPD 104th precinct
Office of Assemblyman Darryl C. Towns
Office of U.S. Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez
Queens County Bird Club
Ridgewood Democratic Club
Urban Environmental Youth Corps
West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT)

At the start of the walk, Capt. Keith Green of the 104th Precinct addressed the problems with paintball and ATVs at the park and reservoir. He said that the officers have a difficult time catching the kids, but that they've begun to confiscate the ATVs when they can catch them. He also said that the paintball folks are hard to catch, because it's difficult to get into the basins. I interrupted and said that I was present when paintball players were shooting their guns in one of the basins, within full view of several 104th precinct officers. His comment was that officer Solomanson has the second highest number of arrests in the precinct, but didn't offer any explanation for his lack of action during that incident. I noticed during the tour that most of the paintball player's detritus in the north end of basin 3 had been cleaned up.

We began the tour with a walk around the reservoir. Most of the people in the group remained when we continued with a stroll around Highland Park. It was clear to everyone on the tour that Highland Park has been neglected by the Department of Parks & Recreation for a long time. They had the same questions that we've been asking on this blog regarding the use of tax dollars for one thing, when they haven't fixed the obvious problems.

Send us an email