Council Candidate: Clean Up Asser Levy Seaside Park, And Tear Down The Bandshell!
City Council candidate Chaim Deutsch is looking to revamp Asser Levy Seaside Park, saying the space is going to waste and the bandshell – abandoned after a court ruling that barred amplified music in the park – has become an eyesore.
Deutsch told Sheepshead Bites he’s been spending time in at Asser Levy, most recently on Sunday, to survey conditions and talk to patrons about their visions for the space. The park, located on Surf Avenue and Ocean Parkway, has fallen into disrepair, he said, and the bandshell has become a useless, tattered husk that the Parks Department refuses to repair.
“This is deplorable. This park should be the jewel of the neighborhood,” he said in a press release. “This is the only public park in the neighborhood, The playground needs updating badly and it should be enlarged to serve all of the families in the area.”
Besides the playground, Deutsch, who is running to replace term-limited Michael Nelson in the City Council’s 48th District, said that the bandshell should be torn down and turned into something more useful.
The bandshell was built in the early 1970s, and most notably served as the home to Borough President Marty Markowitz’s annual Seaside Summer Concert Series. But after the beep unveiled plans to build a $64 million, 5,000 seat amphitheater, neighbors fed up with the sound and crowds organized, and took the city to court to enforce an obscure noise ordinance. As a result of the 2010 ruling, no amplified sound could be played within 500 feet of two nearby synagogues – an area that includes the bandshell – putting the kibosh on the beep’s concert series at the venue.
Since the concerts moved to a new location in Coney Island, neighbors have complained that the city is letting the park fall into disrepair, and the Parks Department recently told Brooklyn Paper that there was no funding to renovate the crumbling bandshell.
“We are making isolated repairs to ensure that the area is safe, but we do not have funding for a full reconstruction,” Parks spokesperson Meghan Lalor told the paper in January.
Deutsch, however, is saying to forget the bandshell, and instead focus on new uses. Talking to parkgoers, he said skateboarders have adopted the stage as an impromptu skate park, and would prefer to have a fixed venue at the location in which to do their tricks. Seniors who visit the park said that there are no senior or community centers in the area, leading the candidate to suggest using the footprint for a new community space.
“[The skateboarders] loved the idea of having something there for skateboarding. Some seniors there, they wanted to see more greenery. They want it to be a nice park. And now that the [concerts] are not there any more, it’s time to think about what’s happening to that park and enhancing it for everyone,” he said. “Spending time with the family in a park is a good thing.”
Deutsch, who also works as an aide to Councilman Nelson, criticized the entire Parks Department process, saying that it takes the agency too long to make repairs or do work with allocated funds.
“You know, a lot of stuff [at Parks] takes three or four years to get to fruition, but we need to make sure they get to it right away,” said Deutsch, who said the city government as a whole has a tendency to sit on funds. “We’re talking about jobs. We’re talking about millions and millions of dollars in funding that the city gets from the state, and they’re sitting on it. You want to use money, you want to create jobs.”
But Nelson himself recently took heat for failing to adequately fund parks in his district. The New York Times wrote a scathing piece comparing a park in Nelson’s district, Kelly Park, with one in Councilman Lew Fidler’s district. Fidler has doled out $18 million to local parks, while Nelson, according the report, only directed $1 million.
Deutsch, though, defended his boss, saying the Times report was inaccurate. He said the Times only asked for numbers on Kelly Park, where Nelson had not directed funds. But the sitting councilman did direct money to Manhattan Beach Park and Bill Brown Park – $4.2 million since 2009, to be precise.
However, he said, the Parks Department has failed to use any of that money to date. Basketball courts at Manhattan Beach have been rundown for years, much to neighbors’ chagrin.
Asked if he had, as his aide, ever suggested that Nelson do more for local parks, Deutsch said it wasn’t his place.
“He’s my boss. He’s the guy. I follow my boss and what the boss says. I don’t make policy decisions or funding decisions,” said Deutsch.
He added that Bill Brown Park, on Bedford Avenue and Avenue X, and Manhattan Beach Park received those funds because they were the only parks they had received complaints about.
“The only time I discuss something [with the councilman] is when someone brings up an issue with the park, that it’s falling apart, like in Manhattan Beach. I bring those issues back to the councilman. If someone did bring up something about Kelly Park, I’d go back to the councilman and tell him and he’d make his decision,” said Deutsch. “So far, I haven’t received any complaints about it.”
Moreover, he said, the Parks Department’s sluggishness to put Council allocations to use discourages directing funds to parks.
“How does it look when funding is given to renovate parks and nothing is done, and you don’t see any motion on it? When you give it to the education system, you see it a lot quicker, you see new computers, air conditioning, whatever, you see it,” he said. “So where are you going to give it, to places where you see it? Or places where it takes three or four years to maybe see a change?
Chaim Deutsch is running for the 48th District of the City Council, currently occupied by Michael Nelson. He will face off in the primary against Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo, attorney Igor Oberman, and 45th Assembly District Leader Ari Kagan. Former State Senator David Storobin is expected to run on the Republican line.