Taking a new look at Vannie

To the editor:

It is considerably larger than Central Park. It has an array of facilities and fields and trails that host competitors in multiple sporting events from baseball, to soccer, to tennis, to rugby, to cricket, to competitive Frisbee, to cross-country racing, to biking.

It has deer and hawks and ducks and geese and swans and more. It has a serene fish-filled lake, which edges the oldest municipal golf course in the United States.

But I am writing now not because Van Cortlandt Park continues to be a special gem of a park, but because the park has — for the past couple years — been “polished” to a new level of sparkle and shine.

Between the non-profit Van Cortlandt Park Alliance and the city’s parks department, professional parks workers — supplemented and supported by volunteers and seasonal interns guided by the park alliance — trim trees and bushes, regularly mow the fields, repair broken benches, smooth out ditches and divots on the running trails, remove fallen trees and branches, and constantly remove trash from everywhere in the park.

In calling out the great work of our park work teams, many more of my fellow neighbors may flock to this special haven in our midst. However, Van Cortlandt — with its newly enhanced work teams — seems more than ready to host these new visitors who have yet to experience this local treasure.

Andrew Upton

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