Prospect Park. You love it. Does it love you?
Perhaps you've only a passing understanding of the relationship between the park's non-profit administrator (the Prospect Park Alliance) and its mack daddy (the Parks Department). If you want to learn more and/or have your thoughts registered, take the survey that the Alliance is circulating. It takes about 10 minutes, and you'll have an opportunity to express, for once and for all, what a terrible tagline is "Gotta Have Park." Hey, if you don't speak up, we could be living with that for years to come. "Brooklyn's Backyard" is much less cringe-inducing. If it were up to me, I'd go with "Geese Is the Word" or "Come Run In A Big Circle" or "Don't Walk Through the Super Dark Middle of the Park At Night Unless You're Prepared to Talk to Yourself in a Crazy Monologue Hoping That the Bad Guys Think You're Too Crazy to Mug" but then they never got around to asking the Q for suggestions.
Take the Survey: Prospect Park.
The Alliance has been kickin' it in high gear for almost exactly as long as the Q has lived in Brooklyn. The difference is nothing short of astounding. I'm sure old-timers will back me up on that. So I say...take the survey, and drop the Alliance a buck or two if you've got it. At the very least, they deserve our thanks for keeping their eyes on the prize while the City's busy spazzing out every couple of years.
4 comments:
You're cracking me up CF. I took the survey yesterday -- obviously before I saw this post of yours-- and my choice was: "You gotta have park"!:-)
BTW, although I doubt this to become a screaming controversial issue here on The Q,my choice of the "You Gotta Have Park!" slogan is one largely based on nostalgia. For those who may not know, that slogan was first adopted by the Central Park Conservancy in the early 1980's. It's purpose was to help drive an annual spring clean-up effort of Central Park -- one in which the public would be invited each year to participate and to claim the Park as their own vital treasure of City life. I believe the slogan was then adopted by the Prospect Park Alliance in 1986.
From when my family first moved to PLG in '88, I remember always looking forward to the "You Gotta Have Park!" weekends in May. It symbolized a time of great outpouring of citizen volunteers who would convene in the Park for clean-up activities,recreational activities, informational tours, etc., bringing with them a very strong sense of Park-community pride. When the slogan was dropped -- sometime in the last decade -- I also remember feeling a sense of loss about that. Which is not to say that the loss of that slogan has meant the loss of these major Park clean-up/volunteer weekends. Not at all! These efforts still continue,with a different slogan rolled out each year now. But I do miss the familiar rallying cry though of "You Gotta Have Park!", which, for me, always served as a reminder that, after a long, cold winter, few things could be more pleasurable to the spirit, soul and pysche of an urban dweller than the return of a clean, green Park.
The "You Gotta Have Park" annual event as it's described here would be great to bring back. I've often felt there's a problem with people using and feeling entitled to the park's offerings but without showing enough responsibility towards it. And I don't just mean the litterbugs though certainly I'm talking about them, but the people with the means to donate money or join the Alliance who don't. And yet are in the playground every single day. I hear historically the contributions and participation in the Alliance is very low for our side of the park which is really too bad. Let's change that!
I think the Alliance will get a fairly updated and detailed picture from the survey and I hope our side of the park will have a high level of participation.
In the survey I suggested to the Alliance to hold more events in the park to let themselves known to the public beyond specific fundraising events (the ball, valentine trees, etc.).
Following the point made by Anon.on the low level of participation from our side of the park, maybe the Alliance could organize some fun events near or in the playgrounds, at the Nethermead, Drummer Circle or the Carousel or simply start the "You Gotta Have Park" event and raise awareness with the public on its valuable activities and how people can help.
In the end people can donate money (I live in the neighborhood and have the membership) but can also donate time and the Alliance does a lot of activities where people from our neighborhood could join and help out. Maybe it is important for the Alliance to try to reach out to them beyond the website.
Just some thoughts.
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