Civic Action in Response to Neighborhood Quality-of-Life Survey

Citizens for NYC and Burger King Corporation Award Grants for 20 Neighborhood Improvement Projects

Most Focus on Cleaning Up and Reducing Drug Dealing
New York, NY, 02/01/2005 -- Citizens for NYC and Burger King Corporation will award a total of $10,000 in grants to 20 New York City neighborhood groups for projects to relieve local quality-of-life problems at a ceremony tonight, February 1, 2005 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. The ceremony will take place at the offices of Citizens for NYC, 305 7th Avenue at 27th Street, 15th floor.

Litter and its companion, rodent infestation, top the to-do list for most of the grant winners, followed by efforts to reduce drug dealing. The grants follow an extensive survey conducted by Citizens for NYC and Baruch College’s e-TownPanel Survey Research Unit, the results of which were reported in November 2004.

With more than 100 volunteers, the Council for a Cleaner Chinatown will remove trash from local streets and parks and reduce rodents on the group’s annual Clean Up Day in August. In Red Hook, Brooklyn, 200 volunteers will participate in 10 cleanup events as part of an intensive trash-reduction project run by the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club. The Club will also provide educational canoe trips along the Brooklyn shoreline.

In Morris Heights, the Heights Inter-Neighborhood Council, a tenant association, will conduct monthly meetings to mobilize residents around the serious rat problem in their building and the surrounding neighborhood. The group will work with the New York City Rat Abatement Program and the NYC Department of Health to develop a plan of action. In Queens, the Rosedale Civic Association will continue its Noise Initiative Campaign to reduce street noise in its neighborhood. The group will work with the 105th Police Precinct and its Community Board to enforce noise regulations, and will distribute more than 10,000 flyers in the spring to encourage residents to join in these efforts.

The Coalition for the South Beach Pond Park Preserve in Staten Island will help reduce drug use and dealing, loud and late noise, local vandalism and illegal trash dumping through its “Community Cleanup with Friends” event in May, 2005.

While Windsor Terrace residents are working on overdevelopment, other projects across the city will address vandalism, traffic congestion, local air pollution, dangerous intersections and housing code violations.

Citizens for NYC President Michael E. Clark applauds volunteer efforts to improve the city’s quality of life and will speak to the need for more community involvement and collaboration with city agencies.

“Citizens for NYC supports thousands of neighborhood resident groups, helping them strengthen and improve their neighborhoods throughout the city,” says Clark. “We thank Burger King Corporation and eTownPanel for their partnership on this project.”

Citizens for NYC and eTownPanel will conduct annual surveys on neighborhood problems and quality-of-life to assess results over time, which will lead to future grants.

Citizens for NYC, a nonprofit organization founded in 1975, mobilizes New Yorkers to improve their neighborhoods in the areas of Urban Environment, Beautification, Safety, Poverty, Neighborhood Diversity, Youth-Led Community Service and Youth Entrepreneurship, providing small grants, workshops, information and assistance to more than 12,000 grassroots volunteer groups throughout the city’s five boroughs. Citizens for NYC is your partner for better neighborhoods.

Contact Information

Sonia Estreich

Citizens for NYC

Citizens for NYC

Contact via E-mail