Park Hill

A friend writes:

It appears to me that fewer people are driving up Undercliff this week. Granted it’s only Wednesday and I did not walk down yesterday, but I have not seen multiple cars driving up in the short time it takes me to walk down the hill as I did when the signage first went up. Of course last week (or was it the week before) the low light was the YPD patrol car (tag number 303) driving up the hill without being on an emergency call (no lights and siren). This morning some charming neighbor (NY tags BLB 8919) drove up the hill, but at a time when I was the only potential human point of impact.

I am still concerned about this issue. As people generally get the idea the street is one way going down, it actually gets more dangerous when people violate the law and drive up. People driving down the hill have taken to driving in the middle of the street since there is no legal need to share the road with an opposing lane of traffic. When there are leaves on the trees this presents a problem in two places; the point by the lower elevator house where the road bears right and the point where the road takes a hard left to cross the former Getty Square Branch right of way. Because of the foliage at those points you cannot see if there is a car coming illegally toward you. You can imagine the scenario for a serious collision. To wit, a driver coming down the hill in the middle of the road at the legal city speed limit of 30 mph cannot see a scofflaw traveling in the other direction at 30 mph and you have the recipe for a disaster or at least a word problem for an exercise in force vectors.

The Saw Mill River Coalition writes:

Hello friends,

The Saw Mill River Coalition, in cooperation with the NYS DOT and
Westchester County Parks, will be leading efforts to remove invasive vines
along two segments of the Saw Mill River parkway/river corridor on November
5 and November 12. WE ARE SEEKING VOLUNTEERS. We need your help to spread
the word.

Please post and circulate the attached press release and flyer to all
interested parties. We are also looking for organizations, municipalities,
and businesses interested in adopting segments of the parkway for vine
removal in the future. This is an excellent opportunity for CACs, fraternal
and environmental orgs, local businesses, garden clubs, and others to help
the river habitat and get their name out in the community (adopters will get
a sign on the parkway provided by the DOT).

Leaders of groups that will participate on Nov. 5 & 12 are urged to attend
the DOT safety training course on October 27, at 10 a.m. Details will be
sent upon request.

Thanks for your support for this effort.

Best,

Carol

Carol Capobianco
Coordinator, Saw Mill River Coalition
River Programs Director, Groundwork Yonkers
914 375 2151

I just know you folks hate an invasive vine the same was I do. So - kill, kill, kill!

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?

Sometime last week, the city finally made Undercliff one way, going down. There are two big “Do Not Enter” signs, one at either side of the road, and a steel pole barrier allowing only one car at a time to pass through going down.

Don’t forget to thank our Councilman Robertson next time you see him - or vote. You can also leave a message with his office at 914 377-6313. It’s just as important to let our representatives know what they’re doing right as it is to criticize them for what’s going wrong.

Well, I haven’t blogged here in nearly two months, missing many an opportunity to plug Racquet Club events. In my defense, my wife and I just had (yet another) son who had a few initial problems, all of which have, thank the gods, been resolved. Don’t take offense, though: I haven’t updated my personal blog in nearly as long nor have I posted on any of my normal online haunts.

However, when the NYTimes mentions your blog, you best get to blogging. Dig it:

Mr. Aris’s blog is not the only online challenge to the Yonkers administration. The Yonkers Citizen, The Yonkers Insider, the Park Hill Blog and the Bad Hedgehog - the latter apparently from its content written, in part, by a pair of anonymous, acid-tongued city employees - are also on the front lines of the digital battle.

It’s somewhat inaccurate to say I’m on the “frontlines” of any battle, digital or otherwise, in Yonkers. I suppose I better go irritate some people if I want to earn my blogger stripes. Maybe it’s time to dig a little deeper into the whole camera thing (thought I’d forgotten about that, did’ya?)

More likely, I’ll just complain about traffic and shill for the Racquet Club. In any case, the blog is back.

Our ever faithful anonymous source, let’s call the source Shallow Throat, writes:

Neighborhood residents met with Councilman Dennis Robertson on June 16th to discuss his proposal for making Undercliff St. a one-way down from Alta Ave. to the old elevator house. This narrow, steep, twisting street has long been recognized as dangerous and we are happy to see the Councilman and the City Traffic Engineer taking proactive measures to solve/alleviate the problem …hazard for children walking to and from school…heavy traffic rushing to the Parkways through the neighborhood… Edit/rewrite/change as you will.

Maybe I was supposed to take that last part out?

Anyway, another source who attended the meeting said it went well, and our councilman seemed ready to work with us (after having first cleared it with his South Broadway constituents). That said, it’s been a over a year since we first started trying to move on this, and I think all of us will believe it when we see it.

So, I understand from both sources that there was also talk of changing the directions of a couple of other streets. Faithful as ever, I immediately got to work on a little map showing the other proposed changes, only to learn yesterday that the proposed changes didn’t represent by far the majority opinion of the meeting and are unlikely to occur. I thought they sounded a little kooky, but what the heck.

Anyway, I’m not going to waste a perfectly good map with colors and text and everything. Just remember: this is NOT the actual proposal, just a pretty map. Well, ok, it’s not that pretty, but damnit, I worked for half an hour on it, so here it is.

As I will not be able to attend this evening, I have written the following open letter to Concilman Robertson which I hope to have read at the meeting:

To the Honorable Councilman Robertson,

Let me thank you for taking time to meet with representatives from our neighborhood to discuss making Undercliff a one way street and to offer my apologies that I cannot attend in person. Although the Park Hill community members here represent the oft-considered sentiments of the entire neighborhood, I would like to add my voice to theirs in order to reiterate our strong concern for the safety of all who live in or transit through our neighborhood.

If I may make a couple of observations about the road itself, Undercliff was built at a time when automobiles were smaller and cars utilized roads like Undercliff much less. It was never designed to accommodate our larger cars nor its current volume of traffic. Living up to its name, Undercliff’s incline and turns are extreme; visibility on the road is severely limited; and during any kind of inclement weather, the road becomes nearly impassable.

In the best of circumstances, the road is hazardous. Despite the obvious danger, I understand that historically there has been opposition to closing the road or curtailing access to it. There’s no way around it, so I’ll just say it: the issue has become couched as a “those living up the hill” vs. “those living at the bottom of the hill” conflict.

This is a shortsighted obfuscation. To those who would frame the issue thusly, I would remind them that children coming from both up and down the hill walk on Undercliff everyday. It doesn’t matter whether a child lives at the bottom or the top of the hill – if even one child is injured (or God forbid, worse) on Undercliff, it will be a tragedy for everyone.

Moreover, Undercliff isn’t even needed. Park Hill Avenue and Rumsey Road – roads designed to accommodate larger volumes of traffic – both bisect the neighborhood and can be accessed mere blocks from the Undercliff /South Broadway intersection. No one is going to be inconvenienced by more than couple of minutes if the City makes Undercliff a one way street, but it will cut in half the volume of traffic on that dangerous road.

This is first and foremost a safety issue. I don’t think making one small road a one way street is asking too much the safety of all our children.

Yours Sincerely,
(Names and addresses redacted)

Please, if you can, attend this meeting or send a letter.