March 2010

This won't be news to those who have visited the dog run over the past few days and seen the signs posted there.

Given the rapid pace of the construction fence crew this afternoon there's a possibility that today is the last day the Owls Head Park dog run will be open in 2010. 

It's a good news/bad news thing.  On the one hand, after all these years the Parks Dept will finally replace the dilapidated fences and broken gates at the dog run.  The bad news is that the dog run is definitely secondary to Parks' plan to repair the drainage issues with the bike path.  There's no mention of including any features taken for granted at other NYC dog runs, like access to water, regrading/resurfacing or even benches.

Officially, the NYC Parks Department is calling this capital project "Construction Of Greenway Connector From Intersection Of Colonial Rd & Wakeman Pl To Shore Rd".  The plans include new chain link fences (four sides) and gates for the dog run, although I suspect we're getting that only because the contractor needs the dog run for parking and materials.  More bad news: this is also going to take quite a bit longer than replacing a few hundred feet of fence.

Also, the Parks Dept gave themselves quite a bit of wiggle room wiith their reopening target of "Winter 2011".  Is that January 2011, as in eleven months from now, or December 2011, as in 22 months? Twenty-two months is like 12 dog years!