Brooklyn, NY – Neighbors Turn Up in Hundreds for Park Cleanup and Food Drive at Brizzi Playground

Brooklyn, NY – Hundreds of Residents of Borough Park commemorated the tenth anniversary of September 11th by volunteering at a local park and donating to a food drive.

Located on 10th Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets, Brizzi Park had long been a haven for the homeless and the location of unsavory activity. As reported a Few weeks ago on VIN News, $500,000 was previously allocated by Councilmembers Sara Gonzalez and Brad Lander to renovate the park, one of the few playgrounds located in Borough Park, after area residents held numerous meetings with elected officials, police and the parks department.

Known to some as “Borough Park West”, the face of the area has been changing in recent years, with many young families with small children moving into the area. Surrounded by several schools including Vishnitz, Karlin-Stolin, Shema Koleinu and Sunny Sky Preschool, local residents felt it was time to make the playground available and appealing to the many area children. A concerted effort began this past summer as residents began working with local authorities to clean up the park, evict the homeless, lock the park at night, add more swings and provide the proper manpower to return Brizzi Park to the many youngsters who live in the area.

“Brizzi Park is here for everyone, not only the schools,” Alexander Rappaport, Executive Director of Masbia and a neighbor of the park, told VIN News. “If we take ownership of the park, of the neighborhood, we will have a cleaner, more friendly environment for everyone. The more people who are involved in this effort, the more results we will see.”

It seemed appropriate to Rappaport to spend 9/11 cleaning up a park that is named for World War II hero Nicholas Brizzi .

This gathering at Brizzi Playground turned out to be a huge success and a wonderful community-building event said Rappoport, “Children lined up to get their balloon animals, pony rides, and free cotton candy and other snacks. “Masbia Soup Kitchen Network collected several hundred donated cans of food, all of which will be going straight into the hundreds of weekend take-home packages distributed among the poor every Thursday from its four different sites.”