Corlears Hook Park Entryway Beautification
Our project aims to beautify the 6 entry points of Corlears Hook Park with new planting beds, thus making them more visually welcoming and appealing entryway into the Park.
Leader
Michael Marino
Location
Cherry Street New York, NY 10002
About the project
(A few of the open planting spaces available for beautification)
Our project aims to bring the community together in continuing our efforts to repair the park to its splendor by organizing community planting days. Corlears Hook Park has 6 entry points. These entry points are currently extremely unwelcoming to passersby, offering little enticement to enter the park and utilize many of its’ amenities. Our project aims to make these entrances more appealing with planting beds on either side of all entrances. The areas to be planted range in size from 3’x8’ to 20’ stretches where we can create beds of any size.
There is about 500 square feet of potential planting space across these 6 entry spots!
- 2 along Jackson Street
- 3 along Cherry Street
- 1 via pedestrian walkway from East River Park
These areas are highly visible from in and around the park and once beautified will serve as a more visually welcoming and appealing entryway into the Park. It is our hope that through this project we can build upon our core group of dedicated volunteers and increase our numbers significantly enough that we can tackle larger projects throughout other areas of the park in the future (additional planting areas and regular maintenance of plantings). Through the clean-up events we have organized already we have seen how engaged the community can be in caring for the park – many have expressed a desire for opportunities such as the one we are proposing – where they can get their hands in the soil and plant, in addition to the raking, pruning, weeding and picking up of trash that we currently do.
We hope that the outcomes of this project will include increased park usage by the local community, as well as visitors to the Lower East Side, and increased awareness/membership of our friends group.
The Steps
We will work in consultation with the Parks Department and Partnership for Parks, as well as the park gardener in careful selection of appropriate perennials, annuals, and size of each planting area.
The funds raised will help cover the cost of plants, planting supplies/tools, promotional materials (fliers/banners), and food for volunteers during planting events.
Based on the funds we are able to raise we will scale this project appropriately by working with the Parks Department and Partnership for Parks to identify the most appropriate of the 10 areas to address first to provide the best possible impact. Larger planting areas in less places will provide a more dramatic effect than spread out smaller areas.
We will organize planting days in the park to beautify the areas around the entryways by cleaning, weeding and planting new beds with a mix of annual and perennial plantings.
In addition to our core group of volunteers, we will recruit additional volunteers from our own mailing list and Facebook page and partner with the Vladek Houses Resident Association and the East River Housing House Committee to promote the project and recruit more helping hands (thus potentially increasing membership for Friends of Corlears Hook Park).
Why we‘re doing it
Corlears Hook Park was severely damaged by the storm surge caused by Hurricane Sandy. The park lost many plantings, trees and the dog runs were destroyed. We have been working to repair the damages done by the storm and most recently worked with the DOT on replacement of damaged lamp posts and with the Parks Department on replanting of felled trees.
We hope that the outcomes of this project will include increased park usage by the local community and visitors to the Lower East Side.