Before I stopped attending community board 3 meetings because it was pointless, futile and dishonest in my opinion, worse than dishonest because we did not elect these people so it was also undemocratic I witnessed Alfredo Feliciano speak passionately about the need for speed bumps in front of two schools on the Lower East Side.
Maybe a year later I was attending a community meeting for a garden what was not CB3 and there was Alfredo talking about the need for the speed bumps. After the meeting I told Alfredo I would meet him at the Children's Magical Garden which is nestled between the two schools the next morning.
I had him draw a map where he wanted the speed bumps to force drivers to slow down for the children exiting and entering the school. It has been many years but I am sad to tell you, many years ago Alfredo witnessed someone hit by a car and hurt badly right where this bump is now.
The community board had achieved nothing to get these bumps in place so I called 311 and got all the info including making sure there was no bus routes on the streets where the bumps would be and wrote two different heads to ask one for more signs and to change the traffic lights and the other to ask for speed bumps.
I got a letter that there were going to add signs and change the timing of the traffic lights but the speed bumps was still being researched.
I happen to be sitting to the curb so to speak when I saw a public member of the community board who was also a little person and I showed him the letter because I was so happy. Instead of being happy for me and the children he said to me, "You will never get those speed bumps".
He is now dead hit by a driver that came around the corner way too fast not far from this speed bump and maybe if one had been there he would still be alive.
I am very grateful for this speed bump because it means a safer street for kids.
I do want to continue to work to get the other speed bump in place for The Lower East Side Preparatory School. The added a cross walk sign on the ground but it is not enough. I have seen kids laying on the street playing which is foolish but kids will be kids and adults as well do foolish dangerous things so I wish we could get the speed bump in place there as well.
If the community board will not help you than go direct to the source. Call 311 and ask them to direct you to the proper department and write a letter and or call, or do both.
I am so proud and this reminds me of when I got the bathroom doors put back in the women's bathroom at Tompkins Square Park. I wrote the parks department and the NYPD and I got doors returned to us. I asked for smaller doors that give women privacy but discourage an creepy behavior that the toilets were not meant for including shooting up drugs, etc. Greatest good feeling was seeing a handicap woman and her helper go in to Tompkins Square Park Women's Bathroom and go in to the handicap stall and close the door. Before there was no door.
Take action and go to the source....
I want to say a special thanks and gratitude to Margaret Forgione, the Borough Commissioner of DOT and everyone at DOT that helped me to achieve this important step to help our kids and Mr. White if that is his name for tracking me down when there letter to me was returned. Thanks to everyone at DOT for helping us get the speed bump and the signs to make the street in front of Anna Silver School safer.
I wrote DOT an thank you note via email:
http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2010/10/suzannah-b-troy-w-alfredo-feliciano.html Dear Margaret Forgione and everyone at DOT that helped me to get a speed bump and signs for Anna Silver School, Lower E. Side, Thanks & gratitude! We are still hoping for one more at Norfolk between Rivington & Stanton. Thanks again so making is safer for the kids of the LES!
Special note: I will always think of that speed bump and my Maternal Grandparents in Heaven. Gramps was born in to poverty, you could smell poverty in 1904 on the Lower East Side on Ludlow Street not far from this bump and my Bronx Grams who loved Gramps so much and me too.
p.s. I also wrote the mayor this:
Highest praise, thanks and gratitude to Margaret Forgione, Borough Commissioner and all her staff at DOT that help me to get a speed bump for Anna Silver School. I am still hoping to get one more speed bump for Lower East Side Prep on Norfolk St. between Rivington and Stanton. I do not have kids but I cant express in words to know I help Alfredo Felicianos voice to be heard when CB3 turned a deaf ear and had him draw me a map and now I know our kids our meaning the kids of the Lower East Side are a bit safer. Thanks and gratitude, thank you so much!
