City Council Speaker Corey Johnson announced funding for the Gowanus Houses Community Center and Wyckoff Gardens Community Center with local group leaders, advocates and politicians – including Council Member Brad Lander, Committee on General Welfare Chair Stephen Levin, and Public Housing Committee Chair Alicka Ampry-Samuel. The two centers will receive nearly $9 million from NYCHA and the City Council’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget, as voted on early in the summer. This will allow Gowanus to be permanently reopened after 14 years and Wyckoff Gardens to be renovated and expanded with 21st century facilities.
“We’re here today to make good on a promise that the city made to residents here at Gowanus and Wyckoff years ago – before I became a council member almost 10 years ago,” Levin said in front of the Gowanus Houses Community Center on July 11.
Johnson highlighted the tenant associations’ leaderships, community activism and partnerships all these years to help make this day possible. He also spoke about his experience growing up in public housing in Massachusetts and emphasized their importance for residents everywhere.
“Community centers are one of the backbones of our communities and of our neighborhoods,” Johnson said. “We need them for after school programs, for senior gatherings, for socializing, and for so much more.”
This announcement also comes after months of local organizations and NYCHA residents demanding more investment in public housing before the impending Gowanus rezoning happens.
“It’s true, as we’ve been saying from the start, this plan does not do anywhere near enough for the public housing developments that are in the neighborhood. We’re not going to have a satisfactory plan until we get to a place where there is more investment in public housing,” Lander said at the Feb. 6 Department of City Planning meeting, as we had reported six months ago.
WYCKOFF GARDENS
The Wyckoff Gardens center will be renovated through $2.5 million in the City Council’s funding for the Fiscal Year 2020, in addition to $1.8 million that has accumulated through Council funding that started with David Yassky and that Levin has added to every year. Currently, the center offers after-school youth programming and senior services. Expansion plans include a new kitchen and classrooms for further skills and job training.
“The houses are out here today. One win for us, just one, means all of us have won,” Charlene Nimmons, the former president of the Wyckoff Gardens Resident Association, said at the podium. “I’m getting emotional because we fought hard.”
GOWANUS HOUSES
The Gowanus center once had a kitchen, billiards room and a mirrored wall where girls would take dance lessons, according to a Curbed NY report. Though most of the building’s been closed for the last 14 years, the Gowanus center currently offers some senior service programming and is a warming and cooling center, most recently used for air conditioning during the last month’s heatwaves. But children and teens haven’t been able to learn and hone social skills in more than a decade, according to Ed Tyre, president of the Gowanus Houses Resident Association.
The City Council allocated $947,000 in budget funds for the center and surrounding area, including Levin’s previous allocation of $475,000 through Participatory Budgeting in 2014. This year, the Mayor’s office made a commitment of $3,525,000 through NYCHA funding to fully fund the needed renovations at the Gowanus center. With this money, the center can implement cultural, artistic and educational initiatives, plus youth programming through the Department of Youth and Community Development Cornerstone Program. That program, for example, offers homework help and recreational sports opportunities to kids, financial literacy and planning for teenagers, and GED and ESOL classes for adults.
WHEN’S CONSTRUCTION?
Lander said the Gowanus center would continue to remain partially open throughout construction, with $50,000 from the Speaker being designated for additional programing.
“Starting right away it’s going to be possible to have some programming in here while we’re waiting for the design to get done and the construction to start,” Lander said. “No one’s going to forget this because there’s going to be organizing all the way.”
However, some voiced their wariness since specific construction timelines hadn’t been announced yet.
“We have heard about announcements of funding in the past, at least three times,” S.J. Avery, a Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice member, said while addressing the politicians and their representatives. “What we are looking for now are start dates. We need to know when, where, and how. That’s the next step and we’re sure you can help us make that happen.”
Theresa Davis, the vice president of the Gowanus Houses Residents Association, also said that community input for design should be represented and considered moving forward.
“It’s a long-time coming. We have the money, but we also want to sit down when the negotiations come in how the center is going to be built,” she explained. “We don’t want to be left out of that picture. We still want to be included in everything that’s going on in our community center.”
Top photo by DeGregorio
