Fears Raised Over Community's Future Access to BPC Ball Fields

Each year, thousands of Lower Manhattan children play in the Downtown Soccer League and Downtown Little League on the Battery Park City ball fields. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Posted
Mar. 06, 2015

For the second time in three months, local residents are accusing the Battery Park City Authority of taking valued amenities from the community.

In January, operation of the North Cove Marina was handed over to Brookfield Office Properties despite widespread support for Michael Forten­baugh, a local resident who had long run a marina sailing school and club. Now, the threat of restricted community use of the Battery Park City ball fields is troubling local leaders.

Worries over the future use of the fields by Downtown sports leagues and other local community and school groups has been sparked by the authority’s decision to open the field permitting process to organizations outside Lower Manhattan.

The three-year agreements that had granted near-exclusive permits to Downtown Little League, Downtown Soccer League, Manhattan Youth and local schools ended in 2014.

For the coming Downtown Little League season, at least, all but one of the 16 organizations granted permits are based in the Community Board 1 area, Robin Forst, the authority’s spokeswoman, said in an email. Ninety-five percent of the spring field time has been allotted to youth nonprofit groups and schools, Forst said, with for-profit youth organizations getting four percent of the field time and adult groups the remaining one percent.

Late last month, six elected officials met with Shari Hyman, the president and CEO of the authority, to voice their concerns about local access to the ball fields as well as renewed public programming in North Cove Marina.

“We acknowledged our shared priority to provide local nonprofit youth leagues, along with schools and school-based organizations, with field time,” Hyman said in a statement following the meeting. “The current spring season reflects this commitment as these groups received 95 percent of the total available permits for the season.”

But it is future access to the fields that troubled the officials.

“We will continue to push until we have a firm commitment going forward and a positive outcome in the neighborhood, at North Cove Marina and the ball fields,” the officials said in a joint statement.

Members of CB1’s Battery Park City Committee shared those concerns when they met with Forst early last month.

Andrew Zelter, president of the Downtown Little League, said the ball fields already “don’t even come close to supporting” the 1,100 Little Leaguers and 1,800 Downtown Soccer League children who are expected to register this year.

For the coming season, he said, the Little League will lose about 20 hours per week of play on the fields. “Really, to me this is a question about what the future looks like for these types of activities for our kids,” he said.

But, like Hyman, Forst made no promises.

“We really welcome all community organizations to apply and take advantage of the wonderful ball fields that a lot of people here were involved in building,” she said, “and we hope to see a variety of uses on the fields.”

Leyna Madison, a site director for Manhattan Youth, said that in previous seasons her teams had to rush to clear the field and make way for the Downtown Little League. “If we’re going to put more people on this field, how much more can we rush?” she said.

In its resolution, the committee urged the authority to establish a process that would require consultation with a community ball fields task force before making any future permitting decisions.

“What happened has happened,” committee chair Anthony Notaro said. “We need to fix the future.”