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Toilets In Park Stir Gardeners' Concerns
At a meeting last month of the Friends of Washington Market Park’s board of directors, half-a-dozen gardeners from among the nearly 60 who tend to the 6 x 4 foot plots came to voice their concerns. The board’s decision at its previous meeting to recommend putting the structure in the park’s northwest corner—now occupied by a storage shed and near the gardens—set off a flurry of e-mails over what that would mean when sewer and water lines are dug from Greenwich Street. “I’m afraid if you do construction it will take a long time and people will lose plants and lose the season and the community garden will be either diminished or destroyed,” said Larry Wasser, who is the gardeners’ representative on the board. Wasser warned of other potential problems: predators and vagrants; poor maintenance, and an unsightly and smelly addition to the park. “I’ve thought about having my garden next to a toilet and it’s not something that fills me with good cheer,” he said. The structure would be one-story tall and approximately 400 square feet, with separate units for men and women. Caregivers, especially those tending to more than one child, have long complained about herding their tots to the nearest toilet, which is up the stairs in Borough of Manhattan Community College. Some let them use the bushes. Susan Gregory, a gardener whose child played in the park years ago, said such behavior was unknown. “Perhaps because there was better management of the children,” she said, “a larger sense of civic responsibility at the time.” Councilman Alan Gerson has pledged $650,000 towards the structure that is expected to cost at least $1 million. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has said it would make up the difference. Bob Redmond, the Parks Department’s director of capital projects, who also attended the meeting, said the park undoubtedly needs toilets. “There’s a compelling reason to have a bathroom here,” he said, citing not only the many children who use the park but also wheelchair-bound parkgoers who cannot get to the BMCC bathrooms. Three possible sites have been identified for the structures, two of them adjacent to the gardens. (See photos above.) A third location, farther south and next to the park “house” and ramp leading to BMCC, would be the most visible, but also the least disruptive to the gardens if sewer and water lines can be brought from Chambers Street—and if it can be done without uprooting hardwood trees that may stand in the way. The Parks Department has yet to make that determination. The board, and a Parks Department landscape architect, deemed that location best for a new children’s garden, to be funded in part by a $15,000 grant from Friends of Lower Manhattan. A design for the garden in that location was drawn up, but Nelle Fortenberry, president of the Friends group, announced at the meeting that the garden may not have adequate staff to maintain it. She said the board would vote again on its choice for a toilet location if the Parks Department determines that the structure can go next to the park house, with lines laid from Chambers Street. Redmond said he would take the community comments back to Parks Department engineers and architects and come up with a plan. “The next time we meet I’ll have a proposal that you can comment on,” he said,
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