New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams
Photograph courtesy Workplace of the Mayor of the Metropolis of New York
Regardless of all of the rain we’ve been getting lately, summer season simply unofficially started in New York Metropolis with Memorial Day. The times are getting longer and hotter, our seashores are open, and, for the primary time within the metropolis’s recorded historical past, there have been no shootings on the Sunday earlier than Memorial Day — additional proof that our administration’s strategy to preserving New York Metropolis the most secure huge metropolis in America is working.
Final week, we kicked off the “We Outdoors Summer season,” a collection of investments, bulletins, and programming throughout the 5 boroughs to make sure New Yorkers have a secure and enjoyable summer season in our parks, playgrounds, and in every single place else open air. We’ll proceed to roll out bulletins all through the summer season, however right here’s a few of what we introduced this previous week as we proceed to make New York Metropolis the perfect place to boost a household.
We all know that because the climate warms, New Yorkers are looking forward to extra outside house. However for too many households, inexperienced house is out of attain and too removed from their neighborhoods and communities. That is precisely why we kicked off work final week to remodel vacant, deserted tons into parks and put extra greenspace inside strolling distance of hundreds of extra New Yorkers who don’t at present have entry to them. We’re beginning in East New York and Cypress Hill in Brooklyn, in addition to Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, and Corona in Queens, and we are going to develop from there.
Our “Vacant Heaps to Parks” initiative is a good instance of presidency working to chop crimson tape and assume creatively about delivering extra inexperienced areas to areas most in want. It additionally builds on the work our administration has completed to develop entry to parks. Since taking workplace, we’ve added over 86 acres of parkland throughout New York Metropolis, placing tens of hundreds of extra New Yorkers inside strolling distance of a park.
However we’re not stopping there; as a part of “We Outdoors Summer season,” we additionally introduced the completion of a $23 million mission to remodel public areas and playgrounds at six NYCHA developments. Not solely will these new public areas serve NYCHA residents, they’ll additionally serve those that dwell within the neighborhoods round them. All of those initiatives collectively have helped improve the entire share of New Yorkers now inside a 10-minute stroll of a park to greater than 84 %.
We all know we additionally want to provide our younger individuals stimulating actions for the summer season months when they’re out of college. We have to attain them earlier than they fall into the rivers of violence, as a result of by the point somebody has a gun of their hand, it’s typically too late. That’s why we introduced $13 million in everlasting funding to assist at-risk youth, justice-involved New Yorkers, and other people residing in neighborhoods with excessive charges of violence. And for the second straight summer season, we’re investing $2 million to supply prolonged hours at choose Beacon, Cornerstone, and Saturday Evening Lights applications, particularly in NYPD precincts with the very best ranges of gun violence. These applications give our youngsters a secure place to assemble and thrive.
We’re moreover making certain our younger individuals have on-ramps to success proper from the beginning by means of our Summer season Rising program that has supported a file 100,000 summer season job alternatives yearly for younger individuals. We all know that if we spend money on our younger individuals throughout the summer season months and provides them alternate options, we are able to preserve them secure and on the appropriate path.
Lastly, we’re making the world’s most iconic inexperienced house even safer! Central Park is New York Metropolis’s yard however points like unlawful merchandising, overflowing trash, extreme noise, substance use, and extra have persevered for a lot too lengthy, and so they typically spike in the summertime months and should be addressed. This previous week, we introduced the “Central Park Neighborhood Hyperlink,” a multi-agency response aimed toward addressing public security and bettering the standard of life in and round Central Park.
We all know that New Yorkers and vacationers are fed up with quality-of-life considerations, and I need to be clear, our administration doesn’t tolerate an environment the place something goes. We prioritize working hand-in-hand with communities to maintain our neighborhoods secure, clear, and comfy as a way to get pleasure from summer season within the biggest metropolis on this planet. That is simply the beginning of the “We Outdoors Summer season,” and because the climate heats up, we’ll preserve sharing extra methods we’re working to ship a secure and enjoyable summer season for all.
