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Welcome to Minnie's world.
She gets "no ball playing" signs posted, then claims she'll magnanimously decline to call the cops if you do, presumably as long as you "play ball" with her. This was one technique that "Atlas Shrugged" opened my eyes to as a youth, passing laws not to get them obeyed but to get leverage in exchange for lenient enforcement. Many zoning laws work like this, it's how NY got full of setback, oversized towers in ugly plazas.

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There's nothing better than a "I'm doing something, (i am assuming) you're doing nothing, therefore whatever i'm doing must be right" argument!

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Brewster: Minnie and the mystery cohert you speak of have never called the cops on little kids and I don't appreciate your insulting remark.

BTW.. what are you doing to get the NCAA field unlocked so that others can use it too?

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Go to the JC Reservoir Preservation Alliance website and find out.

Jersey City reservoir to stay urban oasis
Mayor says it will be passive recreation park

Friday, February 16, 2007
BY RUSSELL BEN-ALI
Star-Ledger Staff

The future of an abandoned Jersey City reservoir -- home to peregrine falcons, red-tailed hawks, egrets and largemouth bass -- has been the source of competing visions.

A city councilman wanted to see the 13 acres filled with ballfields, but an alliance of neighborhood naturalists envisioned a public nature park, the mayor an ecology-themed school and developers condominiums, a sports complex, a parking garage and a mini mall.

Yesterday, Mayor Jerramiah Healy said the eclectic Reservoir 3 will remain a green urban oasis -- the site of a passive recreation park with a pier for fishing, a dock for canoes and a trail for walking or jogging.

"This is not something that was arrived at willy-nilly or quickly," Healy told several dozen residents, city and state officials and reporters gathered at a news conference. "This has been kind of an evolutionary process."

The announcement can be seen as a compromise to some, but not all, of those who were passionate about the reservoir's future.

"I'd have to say that, reluctantly, I think they received it pretty well," Healy said of a group that wanted to see ballfields built for children at the site.

In the end, Healy noted the Jersey City Heights area that contains the reservoir is one of the most congested in the city and an unlikely place for more housing. And some of the city's baseball diamonds and soccer fields are underutilized, he said, including those at Pershing Field, which is adjacent to the reservoir and has ballfields and a running track.

"This type of park is something that we do not have, and this is a more immediate need," he said.

The costs and construction completion date are unknown, Healy said. Parts of the new park could be open to the public as soon as next summer, according to officials.

The mayor was joined by state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson at the conference, which was held at a Pershing Field community center.

"Nothing can be more important than the saving of an eco-oasis -- that's really what this is," Jackson said. "Saving it so that you don't have to go too far to find open space and, not just open space, but species, 'critters' ... as I say with my kids."

Built in the 1870s, Reservoir 3 was a holding tank for Passaic River drinking water. The water was later deemed too polluted to drink, and the city decommissioned it in 1989.

Birch trees, red oaks and maples sprouted from organic material that accumulated on the basalt banks of the reservoir.

Unconnected to any other body of water, fish somehow made it inside the reservoir, said Steve Latham, head of the Jersey City Reservoir Preservation Alliance, who gave several journalists a tour of the site yesterday.

It is elevated and difficult to see from the street, shrouded in part by massive Egyptian revival-style stone walls.

The Reservoir Preservation Alliance, a group of neighborhood environmental groups, obtained a city permit to give tours two years ago and has since introduced hundreds to the reservoir.

The city is mulling over a design by T&M Associates, a Middletown-based engineering group.

The design leaves space for a wildlife wetlands area, which will be off limits to the public, Jersey City corporate counsel William Matsikoudis said. He said the design includes space for public hiking paths, docks for fishing and kayaks and an environmental center in one of the historic buildings abutting the reservoir.

But the Reservoir Preservation Alliance favors its own design -- one that leaves the size of the reservoir intact -- over the city plan, which could reduce it dramatically to make room for amenities.

"That would make it more like a pond," alliance member Ed Mullen, who designed the group's proposal, said of the city plan.

But city officials said the final plan is far from approved.

"We're all basically on the same page," said Matsikoudis. "So we just need to sit down and work this through."

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Worse is the fact that they have refused to create multi-use fields, so there's no place to play soccer. When Enos Jones was renovated we at HPNA asked, and were ignored. We now have a padlocked NCAA field, but no place for 8 year olds to kick a ball around without risking Minnie and her cohort calling the cops.

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That's a very good point. The little leagues around here all play bascially the same season--April through June--so the fields are booked for most nights and weekends during that part of the year.

Unfortunately, that means those fields basically sit unused the other nine months of the year. I'm not sure about Pershing, but the fields downtown are used solely by the Clemente little league.

If the little leagues were really interested in getting more children playing, they would maximize use of the fields, perhaps having a July-September league, to double the use.

I like baseball, and I like the Clemente league, but between baseball fields that are used by a narrow segment of the poulation for a portion of the year, and natural public park space, right now, the latter wins, in my mind.

excuse my ignorance but does passive mean it will just allow to grow wild with no facilities or maintenance?

I'd like to see some activities setup, maybe contract with a local shop to sell different activities.

What summer/winter activities will be offered, for example can you ice skate there in the winter?

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Hurray for a passive nature preserve/park. Three cheers for Steve Latham and team. And the Mayor if he follows through.

Now if only we could get some more focus on preserving poor old historic Hamilton Park. What a shame. What a shame.

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What a brilliant idea! of course the reservior is too small but the Hackensack is perfect. We've got fencing in JC now, so why not crew? As with all things, it needs a visionary who can write a grant application.

Oh yeah, the park: WHOOHOOO!!!

Wow Mr Healy has done more in the last week than he has in the last 24 months.The cynic in me says this is all related to the constant bad press he has gotten lately but i will take good news anyway i can.

How about an inner city rowing team to take on the suburban swells.

Now I have a place to practice my synchronized swimming.

It seems like the baseball field on 6'th St., the Roberto Clemente one is always empty. The big park in the hood by the driving ranges always has a few open fields too. If he actually did turn down 500 kids, that is a problem - I just don't understand all of the empty fields.

Let's hope I'm wrong, and Healy isn't using this as a way to justify giving the Embankment the Heisman... Politics is politics people, victories exist in isolation, and are just as often a harbinger of bad news as good (if not more so).

so now I have a place to sail

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seriously.

maybe we coulda lobbied to just pave it over instead....

sheesh

Yeah great job people -- also thanks Mayor!

Love the idea of a "pier, canoe dock and an elevated jogging path that hugs the inside of the massive stone walls that surround the site."

Now the embankment!

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That's some passive aggressive sour grapes from the little league lobby.

Great news for the Heights. Hopefully they can find space for those baseball fields also but that definitely was not the right site for them.

YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!! YAYYYYYYY!!!!

That's wonderful news. I'm actually stunned.






Great MPHG reference.

and there was much rejoicing.

one down and an embankment to go!

Reservoir No. 3 will be preserved as open space

Ending years of debate, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy declared today that Reservoir No.3 will be preserved for passive recreation.

"This thing has been debated for a long time, an issue that has endured through many administrations. But now the time is right to decide its future," said Healy.

The conceptual plan for the reservoir, on Summit Avenue in the Heights, includes a fishing pier, canoe dock and an elevated jogging path that hugs the inside of the massive stone walls that surround the site.

"This is a great day," said Steve Latham, president of the Jersey City Reservoir Preservation Alliance, a group that has fought for passive recreation at the site for years.

However, the news wasn't great for everybody.

Joseph Napolitano, executive director of the Babe Ruth League at Pershing Field, said he will wait and see if kids use the site before passing judgment.

"I don't know if kids will use it, but I will be watching," said Napolitano. "But what I do know is I turned down 500 kids last year for the league, and who knows where these kids went, maybe the streets."