Shirley Chisholm Park

[isa...@aol.com]

Found this lovely article about Shirley Chisholm Park  with great photos. I am still astounded at the transformation. 

https://ny.curbed.com/2019/7/11/20689777/brooklyn-shirley-chisholm-state-park-photo-essay

I remember my father yelling "roll up the windows" as we drove by "the dump" in summer and Pennsylvania Ave. - pre-Starett City - was a deeply rutted, loop de loop of a roadway. 

As nature took over the landfills and you drove past on the Belt Pkwy, it looked  beautiful, like a primeval forest. But when I got the grand tour in a DEP truck prior to the start of the remediation, it was a different story. It was obviously an old dump, with broken bottles, bits of plastic and newspaper sticking up out of the ground. And the greenery was only mugwort. I had no idea it could grow so tall. 

I am so sorry that the community residents who devoted so many decades to making this happen, didn't live to see the opening day. Posthumous accolades to Ben Gabriel, Solomon Peeples, Wilbur Fussell and Lee Shelley.