Following outcry from Battery Park Metropolis residents, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has backed off a plan to take inexperienced area from a beloved native park to make means for a concrete coronavirus memorial to important employees.
Battery Park Metropolis Authority chairman George Tsunis, a Cuomo appointee who doesn’t reside in the neighborhood, instructed residents the governor agreed to relocate the “Circle of Heroes” COVID employees memorial out of Rockefeller Park in BPC, a large garden the place neighborhood youngsters play.
“This web site goes to vary. It’s going to be a brand new web site. It’s off the desk. Okay,” Tsunis throughout a dialogue with BPC residents in Rockefeller Park on Thursday, which was posted on Instagram.
The residents round him applauded.
Tsunis stated state officers thought Rockefeller Park was location — till they heard a backlash from residents. The duty drive the governor created to review websites for a employees memorial was comprised solely of union leaders, not Battery Park residents.
“When further info have been dropped at [our] consideration it’s good to research these and pivot, which is what we did,” Tsunis stated..
He later added, “You’ve my apologies.”
Tsunis stated he and Cuomo agreed that inexperienced area shouldn’t be taken from residents.
“We share, we share that purpose … We’re one thoughts, and everybody else is of 1 thoughts. Not solely do I perceive. I overstand,” he stated.
“We won’t come in the midst of the night time and we’re not making an attempt to tug a quick one.”
Tsunis stated the governor is “pushing me” to seek out one other location for the memorial to be erected by Labor Day weekend.
He stated Cuomo instructed him, “Look, so long as we are able to discover a extra appropriate location…we’re not going to please everybody.”
Tsunis stated the brand new location will probably be in a extra “industrial space” and “nowhere close to the place youngsters play.” He didn’t rule out that the Important Employees Memorial will probably be positioned elsewhere in Battery Park Metropolis, which is state-owned property.
A Cuomo spokesman stated the memorial will probably be positioned elsewhere in Battery Park Metropolis.
Tsunis clearly was cleansing up a multitude.
Outraged BPC residents stated earlier this week they have been blindsided and steamrolled by Cuomo, who made the preliminary announcement final week to erect the “Circle of Heroes” memorial for COVID employees in Rockefeller Park — with out enter from the group.
The brand new memorial will function an everlasting flame together with 19 crimson maple timber, symbolizing the 19 varieties of important employees who stored the town afloat throughout the darkest days of the pandemic.
Development employees had already positioned equipment within the park to start work on the memorial earlier than irate residents rebelled.
COVID-19 has killed greater than 50,000 New Yorkers, together with many important employees.
