Ferry Point Park in the Bronx, with 422 acres on the East River, is divided neatly in half by the span of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. On the eastern side, construction was completed in October on the sculpted mounds of the Trump Golf Links, a new 18-hole, 192-acre golf course atop a former garbage dump. When course, which cost $ 120 million, opens next summer for youth play, it will bring public golf to a luxurious new level, eventually with greens fees to match. Building it took four years, a large part of which was devoted to capping the landfill.
On the western side, where thousands of visitors and soccer fans set up camp on weekends, the dusty fields have steel pipes for goal posts, water fountains are dry and — worst of all, parkgoers say – there are no restrooms, despite a decade of requests for one.
The contrast between the two sides is lost on no one. “The people who will play over there have enough money to play anywhere,” said Israel Figueroa, 37, a construction worker who recently watched his 9-year-old son’s soccer practice at the park. “But what about the kids? They have nowhere else.”
Dorothea Poggi, the founder of Friends of Ferry Point Park, said she had been asking the city to build a public restroom, known as a comfort station in the parlance of the parks department, since 2003.
A few years ago, it seemed as if some progress was being made. In 2010, the parks department opened a synthetic-turf field on the western side. It installed two water misters that were supposed to keep the field cool in the summer heat, as well as water fountains. The plan was to start work immediately on a restroom, but the contractor who won the bid suddenly pulled out, leaving the project in limbo. Complicating matters was the fact that no water service had been hooked up, so the new fountains and the misters have remained dry.
Ms. Poggi’s group used to organize several volunteer events a year, for planting bulbs and picking up garbage, at the park. But angered by the delays for the bathroom, she stopped those activities two years ago. “The parks department put up a fence with a picture of a bathroom in 2010, and we were so happy,” she recalled. “Then they took it down. I’m not going to bring in hundreds of volunteers who have to hold their knees together. It’s insulting.”
In its defense, the parks department said that the plans for a new restroom had been slowed not only by the contractor’s withdrawal, but also by new building standards in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Zachary Feder, a department spokesman, said that the bathroom’s design was revised to elevate the utilities, adding that construction could begin next fall.
In the meantime, the park’s water fountains will be inoperable for at least another year. “Water service to the western portion of the park is pending construction of the comfort station,” Mr. Feder said.
While the soccer leagues that have permits to use the fields arranged for installation of eight portable toilets, they cannot handle the several thousand parkgoers who arrive every weekend from spring through fall. As a result, people dart into stands of reeds and trees that line the park to relieve themselves. Even in late October, well-worn paths into the reeds were visible.
Last summer the police cracked down on park users who urinated in public. “People get tickets all the time,” said Victor Bernardez, 48, who was watching his son play soccer. In addition, a nearby hotel has complained of being overrun with adults and children in search of toilets.
Ms. Poggi, who lives a half-mile from the park, said she was pleased that a restroom was finally being built on the eastern side of the park, where a new playground had also been constructed. But because of the park’s layout, that restroom will not be accessible by the huge crowds on the west side. Until a bathroom is built there, parkgoers will continue to rely on the portable toilets, labeled “Liga Hondurena” and “Liga Mexicana,” as well as the reeds. “I’m disappointed that our park is put on the back burner, especially since it’s so heavily used,” she said.
With the towers of the Whitestone Bridge rising in the middle distance, she marveled that the parks chief Robert Moses managed to have the span built in less time than it has taken the parks department to open a bathroom. The bridge opened in 1939, after just 23 months of construction.
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