NEW YORK—Tupper Thomas will retire in January from the dual position she has held for 30 years as president of the Prospect Park Alliance (PPA) and Prospect Park administrator.
Thomas can look back on a long career of passionately rejuvenating a park that once lay in a state of severe disrepair. She celebrated the groundbreaking of her final project on Wednesday—the $70 million revival of 26 acres at the southeast corner of the park along the shore of Prospect Park Lake.
The Wollman ice skating rink, built in 1960, will be demolished and replaced with recreational space that is suitable for all four seasons. When the Lakeside project is completed in 2012, New Yorkers will enjoy two outdoor skating rinks in the winter, roller skating and water features in the summer, and an LEED-certified green building with indoor and outdoor recreation space, café, and facilities.
Some natural space will also be reclaimed. The Wollman Rink was built on Music Island. The island will be reclaimed as a wildlife reserve and used for environmental education. Five acres will be added to the lake and three acres of park land will be opened up.
Thomas, Benepe, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz met on Wednesday as old friends. The three have worked together in many capacities for decades to pull the park out of the dilapidated state it was in before the city committed to its revitalization in 1980. This is the final project of the era of Thomas’ reign, which will be passed on to Emily Lloyd as the next PPA president.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the park declined dramatically as a fiscal crisis loomed over the city, reads a pamphlet for the Lakeside project. Since the 1980s, the PPA has undertaken massive landscape restoration—replanting, preventing soil erosion and cutting back dense thickets to create flowing channels out of slow-moving, swampy streams are among the labor-intensive projects that have spanned over 80 acres. New playgrounds, the renovation of a historical carousel from 1912, and other added features have also increased the number of visitors to the park.
“The biggest change has been the number of people who come here,” said Thomas of her time as PPA president. “It’s gone from 1.5 million [yearly visitors] to almost 10 million.”
The park draws people from all over the borough, as Brooklyn has the lowest ratio of green space per resident in the United States. Thomas has gained the support of many politicians for her projects over the years by showing them that the park is not only important to residents of the direct vicinity, but also to all of Brooklyn and beyond.
The City Council, the mayor’s office, and Markowitz’s office are among the supporters of the Lakeside project, each contributing $11.5 million. Private donations, however, have provided a significant portion of the funding. The PPA has gathered $54 million and begun construction, but will need another $16 million to complete the project.
“Previous administrations chose during bad economic times to treat the parks as a step child, and with that our infrastructure fell into a state of disrepair that took decades to bring back to where it was,” said state Sen. Carl Kruger. “Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Benepe, Tupper and her staff, and so many good folks have led with leadership and direction and have refused to take that avenue of approach, and for that we will always be eternally dedicated.”
