PROSPECT HEIGHTS — A request to probe the city’s legal agreement with California celebrity skater Tony Hawk’s foundation to build a concrete skate complex on a historic Brooklyn park was hand-delivered to Comptroller Mark Levine’s office on Tuesday morning.
In the request, copied to the city’s top lawyer and incoming New York City Parks Commissioner, Friends of Mount Prospect Park urges investigation of potential violations of the New York City law requiring that Adopt-a-Park agreements safeguard the “integrity” of the sponsored park and indemnify the city for associated injuries or deaths.
“Mount Prospect Park is not any old construction site. It is a well-loved, historic neighborhood park with virtually intact [Work Projects Administration-era] landscape architecture eligible for the National Register of Historic Places,” said Hayley Gorenberg, president of Friends of Mount Prospect Park. “People enjoy the center oval’s free, flexible green space, designed to be used many different ways by many different New Yorkers throughout each day. Our park deserves respect, and the law backs that up.”
In addition to the integrity point, Friends of Mount Prospect Park’s investigation seeks financial probing, asking whether the New York City Administrative Code’s fiscal requirements for sponsorship have actually been met by asserted “in-kind” contribution to the publicly bankrolled construction and whether indemnification provisions in the law and the Adams Administration’s agreement could pose problems for the city.
Noting the legal requirement to indemnify the city, Friends of Mount Prospect Park asks the amount of insurance and assets Hawk’s foundation, The Skatepark Project, has provided. The document seeks to have the comptroller evaluate dangers to skaters, passersby and parkgoers. The request also inquires about whether the identified issues could mean that the city’s designation of Mount Prospect Park for skate construction triggers exceptions to indemnification such that taxpayers would have to help pay for harms.
“Up a hill from Eastern Parkway’s multi-lane traffic, Mount Prospect Park has no visibility from the street and features sloping paths, granite staircases and thousands of acorns that skateboarders call ‘danger pebbles,’ showering down from beautiful oaks,” Gorenberg said. “Experienced skateboarders — including Tony Hawk’s designer — have pinpointed skate dangers. New Yorkers want to know whether taxpayers could be on the hook for injuries or deaths, in addition to being on the hook for more than $11 million of public construction money, while Tony Hawk donates his ‘in-kind’ ideas.”
More background
Mayor Eric Adams announced four new skate facilities in early 2024; three of the four sites are already paved and have not faced opposition. The fourth site specifies a 40,000 square foot mostly paved facility on the central oval lawn of Mount Prospect Park, a neighborhood park eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
Brooklyn Community Board 9 voted a 25-point resolution against the Mount Prospect Park construction, citing environmental, process and safety flaws. The community board, thousands of park-lovers and a range of urban environmental, neighborhood, historical and climate-conscious skateboarding organizations have called on city officials to protect the park — all urging a sound urban planning solution that shifts any such plan to already-paved space.
