On Longwood Avenue, the Police Athletic League is converting a vacant lot into a baseball field and clearing space for an arts and crafts playground. In neighboring Bill Raney Park, Hunts Point's largest city-owned public space, grass grows long and turns brown in the summer.
"We love that little park," Ramon Ortega, a local resident, said. "But there's no upkeep. So we try to take care of it ourselves, picking up trash and clearing away weeds."
The Parks Department budget has been cut by $20 million during the last two years. Giuliani now proposes raising revenues by selling advertising space on softball-field fences and basketball backboards.
"It sounds pretty desperate to me," Ortega said. "It's taking away the one reason you want to go to the parks. To get away from it all."
--Miguel Almeida