Networking & Links > Success Stories > Friends of Crotona Park

SUCCESS STORIES

Friends of Crotona Park: Building Energy Through Events

In the 1970s and '80s, the South Bronx was the nation's symbol of urban decay. Surrounded by burned-out, vacant buildings, home to drug dealers and vagrants, Crotona Park epitomized the whole neighborhood. The City, in the midst of an unprecedented fiscal crisis, could not provide the assistance needed to rehabilitate the park. And even after rebuilding of the South Bronx began in the late 1980s and 1990s, the park continued to suffer. Efforts by the City to renovate or restore the park were only partially successful; ultimately, Crotona remained an unsafe and unused space for the communities living around it. Few people ever went into the park; it had been abandoned by all but "undesirable" users. It seemed a near-impossible task to bring about its recovery.

In 1996 Partnerships for Parks, recognizing the great need-and the great potential-at Crotona, assigned a Catalyst Coordinator to Crotona Park. She worked to contact the park's stakeholders-organizations and community members on the perimeter of the park-and build energy and impetus for changing conditions in the park. These groups, including local development corporations, housing groups, civic associations, and churches, agreed to work together to try to make a change. They chose to start by organizing an event that would draw hundreds of people into this previously abandoned space and plant the seed of the idea that Crotona Park could be a positive force and place in the community. Even though much of the neighborhood had largely recovered from the crisis of previous years, a lingering fear of the park remained. The first Crotona Park Family Day was held that June and was a huge success. Deciding to continue to work together to make the Family Day an annual event, the group named themselves the Friends of Crotona Park. For three years the Friends' activity ebbed and flowed around Family Day, and each year the festival grew bigger. Their commitment to the park was strong, but they had yet to coalesce as an organization or develop a long-term plan for the park.

In 1999 the Catalyst Coordinator worked to build on the success of Family Day to help the group define its structure and role, with regular meetings and a more long-term plan. With a more formal organization in place, the Outreach Coordinator was able to channel towards the group the energy of a number of park neighbors with complaints about the park. The addition of residents from other sides of the park ensured that the Friends represented a cross-section of park users. Members of the Friends represented dozens of community organizations, including Phipps Community Development Corporation, Aquinas Housing, Mount Hope Housing, Mid-Bronx Desperadoes and others.

Through a small grant from Partnerships the Friends became a 501(c)(3) registered non-profit, elected officers, and wrote their bylaws. Through this process, the Friends identified its mission: to work towards the revitalization of Crotona Park through programming and events, planning and organizing capital improvements, horticultural activities, clean-ups, fundraisers, crime prevention activities, and special projects with Parks & Recreation. In 2000, with the help of some foundation grants, the Friends entered into a formal partnership with Partnerships and the Cityscape Institute to initiate the creation of a management and restoration plan for the park. The process of focusing their goals to develop the plan helped the Friends, working with their partners, to secure more than $1 million in funds for capital improvements to the park, including allocations of $385,000 each from the Bronx Borough President and the local Councilmember, and a $300,000 Bond Act for the restoration of Indian Lake.

In 2000, the role of the catalyst coordinator needed to evolve. Together with Partnerships, the group decided to create the position of Park Administrator, similar to those in large "Flagship" parks like Prospect Park and Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Funded by private and public dollars, the Administrator position institutionalizes-and makes permanent-the partnership between Parks & Recreation and the Friends of Crotona that has been key to the success of the park's revitalization. The Administrator now reports jointly to NYC/Parks & Recreation and the Friends. This year, a Nature Center Coordinator was hired to run environmental education programming during the summer. Thousands of people came to the Fifth Annual Crotona Park Family Day.

Today Crotona Park is the site of a host of community programming, including a Summer Concert series, the final destination of the annual Tour de Bronx bicycle race in the fall, daily afterschool activities at the Nature Center, and countless other programs throughout the year. While the park and the neighborhood have benefited from the City's decade of prosperity, and the risk of downturn is always possible, the park's current revitalization has a greater chance of long-term success because-unlike past attempts to turn the park around-the City and the community are working together in an established partnership. Thus Crotona Park serves as a model for other parks around the City, showing that even in the most devastated urban communities, parks can serve as catalysts for community renewal.