Brooklyn Brings It To Bloomberg: Youth Advocates Rally For Car-Free Prospect Park (Mon Sept 15, 4pm)
September 4th, 2008 by Ethan
Guest post by Prospect Park Youth Advocate, Michael Cheng.
One glorious afternoon, when the sun painted the sky blue, thousands of people gathered together for a day of amusement and excitement. Players dressed in team uniforms got charged up for a game, vendors were selling their hot dogs and sodas, massive men fired up the grills to begin their barbecues, and with a whiff of a powerful aroma arising from the endless green turf, the audience took their seat.
No, this was not the Superbowl.
It was just a typical day at Brooklyn’s beloved Prospect Park. Four adolescent and talented interns, branding themselves the Youth Advocates, teamed up this summer to save Prospect Park from the speeding, roaring, and polluting cars that travel along the Loop Drive within the boundaries of the park.
The Youth Advocates — Michael Cheng (or me), Farah Karimova, Oswald Bowman, and Kelena Matthews — have been working all summer long to make Prospect Park Car-Free 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To learn more about us, please visit our website at: www.youthforcarfreeparks.org.
Our main tactic in gaining supporters for our campaign is to approach every-day park-goers, asking them to sign postcards to Mayor Bloomberg, advocating for a car-free park — Send an e-postcard online here. We are trying to collect as many postcards as we can to show our political leader that cars are a serious 
problem, and that an enormous sea of people agree. So far we’ve collected over five thousand postcards, and the stack is continually growing.
On September 15th we will be walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to hand-deliver these postcards to Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall while rallying for a Car-Free park. If you wish to attend, you can see more details here at Facebook. This will be our final event so definitely expect to have an amazing time while helping beautify our Brooklyn neighborhood!
Along with the postcard signing we’ve done throughout the summer, we hosted many fun events in the park that served as stepping-stones towards a successful movement for a car-free park. On a crowded Saturday morning, all four of us were dressed up in Tree Costumes by our wonderful supervisor Jessie Singer, then paraded along the Loop-Drive symbolizing “Trees On Strike” for justice from all the fume-spewing cars that traverse the park so disrespectfully. We also conducted speed tests to determine how fast the cars were moving through the 25 mph street lanes.
Our results indicated that over ninety percent of the cars were going over the speed limit!
A child should not be allowed anywhere near a road with these outrageous conditions happening. Other times, we handed out free iced-tea to thirsty park users as an incentive to get postcards signed; it was a win-win situation for our supporters. Last but not least, on one fateful day, Jessie and the team stunned me when they told me I was going to be dressed up in bubble wrap to “protect” me from the cars going along the Loop Drive. It was my idea to begin with, so I had no other choice but to concede. Nonetheless, I was able to entertain and amuse the crowds on the Loop in my goofy bubble-wrap costume, while I held up the sign that read “Just Going For a Walk in the Car-Filled Park.” (To read more about our events, visit our blog at www.youthforcarfreeparks.org).
The postcards you’ve signed and the events we’ve held have truly been a major help in making our campaign possible. Each of us — me as a cyclist, Farah as a political devotee, Oswald as a nature expert, Kelena as a track runner — all have our own reasons for teaming up with Transportation Alternatives, but we all share one common goal: achieving a Car-Free Prospect Park. Now it’s up to you to make the journey on Monday, September 15th to use your voice and be heard. Because united we’ll stand, and together we’ll succeed.
September 15, 2008
4:00PM - 6:00PM
Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall
4pm: Meet at Cadman Plaza East and walk over Brooklyn Bridge
5pm: Rally at City Hall
For more, check out the following links:
- Rally details for Monday 9/15
- Flyer: Car-Free Prospect Park Rally - Mon 9-15-2008 (pdf)
- Send Bloomberg an e-card
- Learn more at Transportation Alternative’s Car-Free Prospect Park website.
- Great story and video about the Youth Advocates from NY1.
- The Brooklyn Steppers — watch a video here — just signed on to play the rally!
This post was contributed by Youth Advocate Michael Cheng. For more, see his profile. The “Prospect Park Youth Advocates” have been working in the park 3 days a week to clock speeding cars, put on fun and educational street theatre and get Brooklyn residents to sign letters to Mayor Bloomberg asking him to make Prospect Park car-free. The youth expect to have 7,000 letters by the end of the season.
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