Park Hill

The Resident’s Association writes:

The Park Hill Land Conservancy and the Park Hill Residents’ Assoc. have been accepted by the Department of Transportation adopt-a-highway program for the Park Hill gateway area at the Rumsey Road/Cross County Parkway intersection.

We will be doing once a month Saturday clean up and vine cutting for the next year. Volunteers are urgently needed. Come for an hour - come for the day - meet your neighbors. The DOT provides hard hats, safety vests, orange trash bags. We provide labor and enthusiasm for picking up garbage, rooting out invasive vines and planting.

The schedule of Saturdays is:
October. 22
November 11
December 10
…with 2006 dates to follow.

Please contact coordinator: Terry Joshi at 914 969 4142 or mommylooloo AT hotmail DOT com.

Into orange? Got a neatness fetish? Or do you just want to keep the first part of Park Hill that we and most visitors often see clean? Than sign up for a Saturday. If everyone does one Saturday a year, why in no time at all you’ll be able to eat right off that highway. Or, um, something like that.

Here’s the roundup on upcoming Fall activities at the Club:

Tennis Tournament to Benefit Katrina Victims:

The Parent/Child Tennis Tournament is Saturday, September 24th at 10:00.

The emphasis is on playing in a tournament setting. If your child can get the ball into the service box - underhand by bounce, etc - he or she can compete in the tournament.

Price - $20 for each parent/child team, includes sandwiches, salad and cake.

Sign up on the porch Bulletin board. Proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross for Katrina victims’ relief. Lunch provided by the Racquet Club, cake by Buono family.

If you would like to come for lunch and root for your family and friends, lunch only is $10 adults or $5 kids under 12.

If you can’t come but would still like to make a contribution, send a check to the Racquet Club and indicated “Red Cross Katrina Relief” on the memo line.

Questions? Call Pat Buono at 914 961 6162 or Jim Beirne 914 423 0855.

So come on out and support the folks from the Big Easy, New York style.

Also, Halloween is coming up soon:

Anyone interested in joining this year’s Children’s Halloween Party committee should call or email Patty Gamba at 914 709-0834 or pgamba100 AT aol DOT com. The party is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, October 30th.

Last year’s party was a huge success and we hope to make this year’s even better. We can’t do that, though, without your help and support. We’ll need help setting up, decorating, organizing crafts and games and simply making sure the event runs smoothly. The time commitment should be minimal.

Please respond as soon as possible so that we can begin planning the event. The first meeting will be held next Wednesday, September 28th @ 7:30 pm in the clubhouse. It should last for 1 hour or less.

Next, the Bowling League is starting again:

The Winter Bowling League will be starting soon. The first practice and organizational meeting will be held Tuesday, October 11th, at 7:30 pm. The season is 25 weeks, every Tuesday night.

Please call John Wallen at 914 476 8674 even if you have been in the league for years.

The weekly fee pays for your games and for and for substantial prizes awarded at the end of the season.

So let’s hear from all you regular bowles (and from the new blood as well) to make this a successful season. Both men and women are welcome.

Ah, bowling in the winter; reminds me skiing in the Chamonix. Or, something like that.

And last, and most importantly, Beer and Sausages! Oktoberfest at the Club!

It was the best of times, it was the wurst of times…
Come celebrate Oktoberfest!

Bring your friends and join your neighbors in our Biergarten for some festive Muzik and hot Wurst (liederhosen optional!)

Thursday, October 6th, 8 pm
Lower Bar
Adults Only
$5.00

Bratwurst, pretzels, homemade German potato salad.

RSVP to Patty Schumann by Tuesday, October 4th at:
oktoberfestfrau AT hotmail DOT com
or
917 374 2932

Beer and processed meat products! Ah, god loves us all. Now, if only we can get our hands on a few old school Ale Wenches and the appropriate costumes…what? Oh, yes dear, I’ll watch the kids….

So while I was chasing around city and LE officials about various “quality of life” issues in Park Hill, e.g., traffic, the recent string of break-ins, I realized that this blog should have a few more features:

* Police Blotter for Park Hill, perhaps all of the 3rd Precinct
* Community watch issues (like, for example, the fact that we have no community watch program)
* Traffic news, e.g., dangerous intersections or roads that need fixing
* News about house sales

In the past, readers have also suggested:

* A recommendations list for home repairs, e.g., good plumbers, tree surgeons, cleaning services
* Child care news, e.g., babysitters or nannies available, school news, events for children
* Restaurant/bar reviews, openings, events

I’d like to incorporate some of these things into the blog, and I’m already working on the police blotter (the 3rd Precinct seemed inclined to help). I’ll have enough information to write an update on this and on the traffic situation hopefully next week.

Anyone have any other ideas? Anything else you’d like to see here?

A reader writes:

This morning at 7:22 as I was walking to the train station, a man driving a red car (NY Tags ADT 4112) pulled out of the parking lot for the South Broadway apartment building took a right hand turn, drove past the “do not enter” signs and on up Undercliff.

So what do I do with this piece of information? Do I call the YPD? And if I did, what would they do? I have to believe that, what with kids shooting up chicken hill and all, Yonkers finest have something better to do than follow up on the complaints of a cranky Park Hill resident. But even if we assume that they wanted to do something about this, what could they do? I mean, can a couple of cops just show up at this guy’s door based on my having phoned in a plate number? Last week when I wrote to Councilman Robertson asking his assistance on putting the signage back up, I requested a law enforcement presence on Undercliff to let drivers know that the city is serious about this change. At the very least, this would let us know if the city is, in fact, serious about this change or if they just did it to keep some pesky constituents quiet.

Of course I’m also trying to figure out why this pisses me off so much. At first I thought it was because the street is well traveled by students walking to and from Yonkers Middle/High School. But that’s not it. Kids in Junior high are smart enough not to get run over by scofflaw drivers. It’s the scofflaw part that bugs me. Members of our neighborhood engaged in a political process to request a change they thought would be beneficial. Our councilman made sure it would not bother his other constituents and only then was the change enacted. Then this asshole (I mean, he’s in a car, it’s not like he has to WALK out of his way, he just has to sit in his care five minutes longer) decides that he doesn’t like the change and obeying the traffic signs is optional for him. It’s this lack of respect for the process that annoys me. This still leave me with the question, “What do I do with this information?”

I certainly share this reader’s frustration (although I’m less certain about the assertion that high school kids are immune from the dangers of this road - and the people who defy the law to drive up it.) And he’s almost certainly correct that the folks at the 3rd precinct have more pressing issues. That said, Park Hill residents have an equal right to protection, and although this may appear to be a nuisance issue, it is in fact a safety issue; I just hope that nothing happens to make the safety component obvious.

There is a bigger picture here, however. We’ve had a rash of break-ins in Park Hill lately - three of which I have personal knowledge, and two of which occurred in the last 10 days. These may be tied to the larger crime wave that’s beset SW Yonkers since the Summer. Several new residents, all with children, have asked me how to go about requesting much needed stop signs for high traffic areas (e.g., Hillcrest avenue which has only one stop sign - near the end of the street - for its whole, considerable, length, almost inviting people to recklessly speed). Lest anyone think that traffic safety is an academic issue in our neighborhood, there was a fatal accident at the well traveled intersection of Park Hill and Lakeside, in the very heart of the neighborhood, last week (the investigation is ongoing).

These are not only quality of life issues - they are life itself issues. To answer our reader’s question, I’m not certain what to do about all this, but I’m checking into it. I think a police blotter would be a good start, as well as inviting the 3d precinct to the Racquet Club to talk more specifically about what we can do in terms of public safety, e.g., lighting our houses, learning to take a suspect’s description, understanding what constitutes suspicious behavior and how to report it.

Also, I think the neighborhood needs to make a concerted effort to make ALL of our streets four way stops, just like in communities such as Pelham Manor. Stop signs cost little to erect and maintain, unlike speed bumps. Drivers may choose to disregard them (and there are some notoriously disregarded ones in the neighborhood already), but at least stop signs make drivers more aware of their speed, more conscious of their surroundings.

But now I’m rambling. I’m going to speak to the 3rd precinct about some of these issues as soon as I get a chance and report back.

-ed.

The “One Way” signs are back. Kudos to the appropriate quarters.

A resident writes:

So the do not enter signs at the bottom of Undercliff lasted exactly a week before vandals took them down.

Here is the scoop. Undercliff is a two way street from South Broadway to the entrance to the parking lot for the apartment buildings on South Broadway. Past the entrance it is one way down hill. At this juncture there were two of those steel street sign posts (you know, the angle steel kind with bold hole every inch or so, not the round kind) that have a “Do Not Enter” sign and a “Road Closed” sign attached to them. There were holes bored in the road surface and the posts were merely placed in the bored out holes. That is, there was no concrete put in the holes to hold the signs in place. All the vandals had to do was pull the posts out of the holes and throw the signs in the weeds by the side of the road. So as of 7:25 AM this morning the signs are there, they’re just not up.

I called the Mayor’s help line yesterday to let them know and, shockingly, the maintenance department did not rush right out to put them back up. Would you mind calling them (337 HELP)? Perhaps if more than one cranky person calls we might see some action.

Please, do call. I did. You may also want to call Councilman Robertson at 914 377-6313.

Park Hill 2005 Members’ Picnic
Sunday, September 18, Noon – 5 pm, Rain or Shine
A Day of Food, Fun, Music, Meeting New Friends and Catching Up with Old Friends
Right in the Neighborhood at the Racquet Club

Everthing is FREE, but only for Park Hill Residents’ Association Members

If you have paid dues this year, please join us! RSVP by Wednesday, September 14 with the information below.

If you aren’t yet a member, look for the letter with your address label on it in the mailing you received just before Labor Day and send your dues to the address below with your RSVP.

RSVP with your name, address, number of adults (immediate family members only), number of children, and number of guests @ $5 each.

- Email your RSVP to picnic@ParkHillYonkers.org,
OR
- Mail to PHRA, P.O. Box 59, Yonkers, NY 10705

Volunteers Needed
We also need a few more volunteers to help out on the day of the Picnic. If you have a couple of hours on Sunday to help set up, clean up, flip burgers or help with kids games, please write to:

list AT parkhillyonkers DOT org

…and let us know what you can help with.

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday!