ROTTERDAM Vandals, few skaters close down public park Town officials make future plans for area BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
Low turnout and vandalism have closed the town’s public skate park indefinitely, town officials said. The park was opened on weekends during the first days of spring. But the small fenced-in court in Esposito Park has remained closed all month because of the sparse number of skateboarders turning out to use it and several incidents of vandalism. So far this summer, vandals broke a window at a small clubhouse and have loosened areas of the chain-link fence surrounding the park. Rotterdam police had reported three incidents at the park recently, one involving a broken lock and two regarding individuals found inside the gates after hours. Supervisor Steve Tommasone said some of those who recently broke into the park damaged the ramps by using bicycles on them. He said the town is now considering creating a skate park that would better serve the youth and is not as prone to vandalism. “I’ve always thought it’s the wrong place for a skate park,” he said Tuesday. Rotterdam’s park was constructed in 2003 at a cost of about $100,000, with Schenectady County contributing $40,000 to the project. When the park first opened, about 20 to 30 skateboarders used it each day. But since that time, town officials said, the park has been under-used. Public Works Coordinator Michael Griesemer said hardly any skateboarders showed up on the weekends it was opened this year. “Nobody was actually showing up.” Town officials are expected to complete repairs to the park over the next week and then discuss a course of action. In the meantime, the town has applied for a grant from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to conduct a proposed $865,200 renovation and expansion project at the Rotterdam Boys & Girls Club. The club is located about two miles north of Esposito Park on Curry Road. One of the main components of the renovation would be a 3,400-square-foot addition that would serve as an indoor skate park. Director John Vaccaro said the indoor park would allow the club to rejuvenate the popular skateboarding program it ran up until 2002. After the town built its outdoor park, he said, the club decided against continuing its program. “It was in our gymnasium and the hardwood floor got beat up something terrible,” he said. Vaccaro said part of the program involved the skateboarders designing their own ramps and maintaining them. He envisions a similar program with expanded hours if the grant is approved. “We never had a problem with the maintenance, upkeep or anything,” he said. “They were just so excited to build something on their own.”
There should be a lesson learned here. When they were proposing this big huge park for Rotterdam, it was clear that one is not needed. The ones, and there are many, that Rotterdam has already are more of a liability than an asset. It apparently costs more money to maintain them than it does for the amount of people that use them.
And to construct a larger park will only be more and more of a liability for Rotterdam. That money could be well spent in other areas, such as infrustructure to move this town ahead. People don't want to play anymore...they want to get down to business!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
I totally agree Bumble, this seems to happen to every park that the towns build for the kids to use ie Duanesburg Town Park where a few vandals burned the buildings down. I also agree that there is a liability factor that every town when there are parks but as you said we could the money elsewhere to rebuild our ailing infrastructure.
When I said 'liability' I actually ment the cost to maintain these parks. We are maintaining them for 'who'? We are throwing taxpayer's money to maintain parks that very few, if anyone actually goes to. People are NOT going to move to Rotterdam because we have parks. Slowly but surely, Rotterdam is getting the overflow of undesirable from the city. Safety is a becoming a problem as well. Schenectady had the name of 'little NYC' and now Rotterdam can have the name 'little Schenectady'! Better do something quick!!!!!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
The Town Board will take care of all these problems by building a new park somewhere. That's their solution for everything, maybe it'll drain the water out of Masullo too.
The Town Board will take care of all these problems by building a new park somewhere. That's their solution for everything, maybe it'll drain the water out of Masullo too.
This will be the second time this year that a swamp was supposedly going to be drained (the other one being in Washington D.C. seems to have backfilled with G.E.'s sewage.)
A park would be build long before Masullo will be taken care of...if ever!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
You can build a park for skateboarders, but you can’t make them skate
“Build it and they will come” was once the mantra regarding skate parks, but the experience in at least a couple of area communities has not borne this out. For reasons that no one is really sure of, kids who like to skateboard don’t necessarily want to do so in places specially designated for them. It’s a lesson that’s surely been learned in Rotterdam and Niskayuna, where skate parks have been roundly ignored since opening a few years ago. As a story in Wednesday’s Gazette revealed, the situation is so bad in Niskayuna that officials have had trouble finding adults willing to work as paid supervisors. Excuses have varied: Some say the problem was that both parks were in remote areas (Esposito and Blatnick parks, respectively). Others say the park in Rotterdam was too small, while the one in Niskayuna wasn’t challenging enough. (Both were built on the cheap, for under $150,000.) Still others point to the nominal admission fees, as well as rules requiring helmets and pads. Skateboarding, after all, has always been something of a renegade teen activity, best practiced spontaneously, at any time or place. Could it be that rules regarding equipment, supervisors who enforce them, and formalities like fences may make it seem too much like a real sport — too establishment? Skateboarding is also a form of transportation — a means of getting somewhere to engage in some other activity — so it’s not surprising that some kids have eschewed the parks, or at least still want to ride on the streets. (Keeping them from doing so was the primary reason many of the parks got built.)
Parks are a thing of the past. A skateboard park? Tell me what parent, today would even let their kid go to a park by themselves these days? I'm sure there may be a few, but none that I know of. Put a skateborad park in the city, right near the grafitti 'art class' on Hamilton Hill. Ya know...the new an improved 'urban city'. Surely it would be used there more than here!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
ROTTERDAM Vandals strike town parks BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
Jackie O’Brien isn’t sure what the “Rotterdam Bomb Squad” is, but she wishes they’d stop lending their handiwork to the Rotterdam Girls Softball League building in Esposito Park. Earlier this month she was closing up the league’s concession stand for the season when she discovered the group had used black spray paint and marker to create crude pictures and signs on the building. She returned to the park last week only to find the vandals had returned to color-in their pictures with blue, yellow and silver. “It’s completely trashed,” said O’Brien, the league’s president. “These kids are coming back night after night.” In addition to the building, vandals also tagged an adjacent storage shed, a utility box and a nearby dumpster, each time leaving their moniker in paint or ink. O’Brien said she hasn’t tallied how much the damage will cost the league to repair, because the volunteers don’t anticipate having the time before winter to paint over all the graffiti. And at the rate the vandals are striking throughout the town, there doesn’t seem to be much sense rushing to repaint the building quite yet. Similar graffiti has been appearing with increasing frequency on the town’s parks, bridges and overpasses. Rotterdam Police Chief James Hamilton said graffiti similar to the type found in Esposito Park was also found on the Babe Ruth buildings and dugouts at Memorial Park as well as on a wall at the Rotterdam Boys and Girls Club, He said fresh graffiti was also discovered recently on the Hamburg Street bridge, at a Hamburg Street business and even the recently replaced Mariaville Road bridge. “We’ve seen an increase over the last couple of weeks,” he said. “In many of these locations, we’re seeing the same type of graffiti.” At the Boys and Girls Club, Director John Vaccaro estimated about $500 worth of damage toward the rear of the building. While the damage isn’t extensive, he said the club will likely need to sand-blast the unpainted brick to remove “tags” left by the vandals. “It hasn’t happened in several year and then all of sudden this,” he said. Graffiti is just the most recent incarnation of vandalism at Esposito Park since the summer. Town workers boarded up a bathroom building near the softball fields in June after vandals broke down its doors and smashed the toilets. Vandals also broke into a clubhouse adjacent to the defunct public skate park, breaking several of the small building’s windows. Even the park itself has been subject to vandalism from using bicycles on the skateboard ramps. O’Brien said the recent vandalism has given her a sense of helplessness when it comes to protecting Esposito Park. Lately, she said incidents of vandalism seem to occur with more frequency. “We’re just trying to find some way to curb this,” she said. “It’s our hard work they’re destroying.” Hamilton said investigators are actively following leads and are expecting to track down the vandals soon. “I’m hopeful we’re going to make some arrests in these cases,” he said.
Oh those damn kids and their graffiti! Where are those marker and spray paint laws when ya need 'em? But here is yet just another reason why Rotterdam does NOT need another park. It will, as the existing parks, become a magnet for vandalism. Who the heck is watching our Rotterdam boarders?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
My Dad would have put his foot up my %$@#.....Never did we see this stuff when I was a kid ....to scared to do it.....respected people..things etc.....maybe parents are raising them a little different....to scared to put there foot up their $%#@
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