From The Villager
Neighbors can't stomach Stuyvesant Park cafe plan
By: Jessica Ricci
October 25, 2000
Gramercy area residents and Community Board 6 are fighting a proposal by the city Parks Department to open a cafe in Stuyvesant Park.
C.B. 6 recently voted against Parks' proposal to put a restaurant in Stuyvesant Park. But residents fear Parks will go ahead and offer refreshments and maybe even hotdogs from the little building, originally built as a comfort station, at the south end of the western half of the park, which is bisected by Second Ave.
"We understand that the Parks Department has decided to ignore us, but we have not heard this officially," said Sylvia Friedman, chairperson of the Parks Committee at Community Board 6. According to Freidman, the Parks Department has issued a request for proposals, calling for applicants to submit plans for some kind of eatery.
"It's a landmark park and we feel it shouldn't be privatized or altered," Friedman said.
Bernard and Pauline Goodman, who live on E. 17th St. across from the proposed cafe site, say it's their understanding that Eric Petterson, owner of Coffee Shop on Union Sq., who also runs the Luna Park summer cafe concession in Union Sq. Park, is in line to do the Stuyvesant Park cafe.
"He bought a house on 17th St. right across from Stuyvesant Park," Bernard Goodman, 91, said. Goodman says he knows Parks Commissioner Henry Stern but that Stern won't talk to him about the issue. "I know him from when he was in the Liberal Party around here. Then he joined Giuliani.
"This is going to be a flat-out war," Goodman warned.
Stern told The Villager that Parks intends to do the cafe plan.
"They have a right to their opinion," he said of Community Board 6. "It's a good idea. It's a positive use of public space. It makes the park busier, safer." He said Parks will go ahead and issue an R.F.P.
©The Villager 2003
