Berlin park creates 'pink zone' spaces for drug dealers to carry out transactions

‘This method has purely practical reasoning behind it,’ says park manager

Drug dealers in Berlin have been given designated sections of a city centre park to conduct business in a bid to keep them away from families and joggers.

Cengiz Demirci – manager of the popular Goerlitzer Park in the fashionable Kreuzberg area – said the pink lines had been spray-painted around sanctioned drug zones to let everyone know where purchases could take place. 

Mr Demirci claimed it would encourage people who had become intimidated by gangs of dealers back into the park. “This method has purely practical reasoning behind it. It’s not that we’re legalising the selling of drugs,” he told radio station RBB.

Both city and federal authorities strongly condemned the move. Germany’s drug czar Marlene Mortler lambasted the creation of special zones, saying it appeared to give people “license to trade”.

Pink line marking drug deal zone inside Goerlitzer Park ( AFP/Getty Images )

Berlin’s top security official, interior minister Andreas Geisel, said the park manager’s idea would not be adopted across the rest city. He said: “Police are fighting drug trafficking, including in Goerlitzer Park.”

According to The Local website’s German edition, drug dealers have not been paying any attention to the spray-painted lines in the park – known locally as the Gorli.

Yet Mr Demirci pledged to continue his experimental policy to try to tackle anti-social behaviour problems in his park, where clashes between competing dealers have been known.

Explaining many dealers were from west Africa – including some not allowed to work while waiting on asylum claims to be processed – the park manager said letting them to earn money legally would help address the issue. “Then 90 percent of the activity would stop here immediately.”

A spokesperson for the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, which employs Mr Demirci as the park manager, said: “It is the task of the park manager to find solutions to the conflicts in Görlitzer Park within the scope of his possibilities.

“The approach with the coloured markings on the sidewalks, however, is not coordinated with the district office and [the markings] will be well considered and discussed by the relevant committees.”

Kurt Wansner, a CDU politician representing Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg at the House of Representatives of Berlin, called the experiment “absurd”.

He said: “It is completely absurd and unacceptable for the district to promote drug sales and consumption in Görlitzer Park with its park managers. [The demarcations] torpedo all efforts to get the drug problem under control there.”

(Source: Independent)

Not Aadhaar, but marriage certificate for entering this Coimbatore park

The park 'requests' personal details such as name, address, phone number.

In a gross violation of privacy, a public park in Coimbatore is demanding marriage certificates of people who wish to enter its premises. In a shocking report that emerged on Saturday, M Kannan, a professor at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University to which the park is attached is quoted as saying, “Fed-up with the couples using the park as their hiding and recreation area, the university has come up with this rule. We initially tried to put up rules and regulations such as seeking their ID proofs and asking details such as phone numbers. Despite all that, couples continued to behave inappropriately causing a lot of discomfort to other visitors. Students and families have also complained many times.”

However, when TNM contacted the Public Relations Officer, he refused to comment on the issue until Monday. Upon visiting the park, TNM found that the sign board near the entrance prominently mentions that all visitors are ‘requested to’ enter their name, address and phone number in the entry register. The board also ‘requests visitors to ‘maintain their dignity’ at the park, failing which ‘severe action’ could be taken.

One staff member at the park said, “Only families are allowed. School and college (students are) allowed. Only those who are married can come. If they come alone, we don’t send them, whether it is boys or girls.” Another staff member went so far as to suggest only those with the holy knot or thaali can enter the premises.

While the authorities seem to be covertly referring to public displays of affection by couples, masking it with words like ‘dignity’ and ‘nuisance’ is hardly going to put an end to the problem, especially not at the cost of personal and constitutional freedoms.

The Tamil Nadu Parks, Play-Fields and Open Spaces (Preservation and Regulation) Act, 1959 describes a park as “a place For the resort or the public for recreation, air or light.” However, the authorities seem to be taking issue with the recreation aspect of this definition.

Speaking to TNM, Prabhu, who had hoped to visit the park said, “We came here with friends to study. But according to the rules, we were not allowed inside. When we questioned this, the authorities said you are all lovers! They have decided without even asking.” Lamenting the lack of recreational spaces, Prabhu says, “In Coimbatore, there are not that many places we can go to for entertainment. If they take this away to based on unfounded suspicions, this is very bad. Today, it is lovers. Tomorrow it will be for a religion or a caste. This is bad for a democracy.

(Source: TNM)

Designing a megacity for mental health

A new report assesses how Tokyo’s infrastructure affects residents’ emotional well-being, offering lessons for other cities.

The Tokyo-based psychiatrist Layla McCay says that though the prevalence of mental illness in Japan is comparable to other countries, people don’t talk about it much. “There can be more of a stigma associated with it than in the West,” she says. Only one in five people in Japan with mental illness seek help, while in the United States, that figure is at least one in two.

Though the Japanese may not discuss mental health as Westerners do, they are still concerned about it. “Urban policymakers in Japan often talk about the problem of stress and how to alleviate it,” McCay says. One example, karoshi, or “death from overwork,” often by stroke, heart attack, or suicide, is associated with high levels of stress. (Japan’s suicide rate is the fifth-highest in the world.) And hikkikomori are young people who withdraw from society and do not leave their homes for six months or more—a condition often triggered by high anxiety in response to pressure to succeed in school or work.

The Center for Urban Design and Mental Health, which McCay founded in 2015, recommends that cities incorporate four main themes into urban design to support mental health: green spaces, active spaces, social spaces, and safe spaces. For the past year, McCay has been conducting research on how Tokyo’s design fares.

“On [Tokyo’s] side streets, it can feel like you’re walking through a park.”
McCay interviewed Tokyo-based public health specialists, academics, mental health specialists, urban planners, developers, and architects, and published the results of her findings in the center’s journal this month. She found a number of elements that promote mental health in the Asian megacity that metropolises across the globe might consider imitating.

Japanese government officials and planners tend to approach urban design with a view toward improving physical health rather than mental well-being, says McCay. But, she says, through this work, as well as a concern about stress, they are nevertheless creating public spaces, such as parks and walkable areas, that also shore up residents’ emotional well-being. “Thanks to their focus on greenery, walkability, and beauty, many of the spaces designed to help improve physical health exert similarly positive effects for mental health problems like anxiety and depression,” she says.

One such initiative involves empowering citizens to create small green spaces all over the city. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government offers workshops that teach residents how to create green rooftops, wall surfaces, railroad areas, and parking lots, and offers tax incentives for such efforts. In addition, the 2003 Ordinance on the Promotion of Stylish Townscape Creation established a program in which Tokyo residents work with professional designers to plant and tend to greenery next to their property, spurring many to line the roads outside their homes with potted plants. “On these side streets,” says McCay, “it can feel like you’re walking through a park.”

In addition, these small roads have little traffic, which allows for a profusion of such greenery—and for pedestrians to dominate. McCay notes that Tokyo has managed to keep its cars and buses mostly to its main streets, so that just a block or two off the principal thoroughfares are tranquil, leafy areas conducive to walking, running errands in small shops, and social interaction. The layout is similar to Barcelona’s superblocks, but emerged more organically, largely as a result of the ubiquity and efficiency of Tokyo’s public transport, which is also mainly accessible via the busiest roads. Residents walk to and from bus and subway stops and eschew cars; the city’s automobile ownership rate is only .46 per household—similar to New York City.

The Japanese government also encourages its urban residents to partake in shinrin yoku, which literally means “taking in the forest atmosphere.” According to the report, this practice is “an opportunity for city dwellers to spend leisurely time in the forest without any distractions.” Tokyo has five official shinrin yoku trails west of the city that are easily accessible by train. Some companies include visits to them in their employee health plan.

“Even if societies think differently about mental health, the challenges are the same.”
McCay also found room for improvement. As Tokyo’s denizens spend a lot of time inside—in offices, but also shopping malls—the report encourages efforts to bring more greenery and light to these spaces. “Interviewees spoke about the need to maintain office workers’ circadian rhythms through exposure to light,” says McCay. “These questions are increasingly being posed in Tokyo as workplace stress is often in the news.”

McCay’s center is now looking into other cities’ track records, and the next will be Hong Kong. The center is also driving similar research for cities including Wroclaw, Poland; Montreal; and Morristown, New Jersey, and invites other researchers to contribute studies of their own cities.

“This is the first step in a process in which cities around the world learn from each other about urban design and mental health,” says McCay. “Even if societies think differently about mental health, the challenges are the same and the people are the same. We can all teach each other.”

(Source: CityLab)

Stoke Newington florist sells sticks for up to £18... despite being minutes from park

A florist in a trendy corner of east London has started selling sticks for up to £18 – despite being located yards away from a park.

Broadcaster Jeremy Vine shared a photo on Twitter of a selection of sticks and empty jam jars taken at Botanique, sparking a flurry of jokes on social media.

Located in Stoke Newington Church Street, the “artisan store and flower shop” is just down the road from Clissold Park.

One customer told the Standard: "They vary in price from £12 to £18 and they are decorative.

"Everything else is quite reasonably priced for Stoke Newington."

The image was originally taken by food writer Debora Robertson who tweeted: “There is a new shop in Stoke Newington selling sticks because of course there is.

“For those asking, the Stoke Newington sticks start at £12.

“The sticks have no magic powers as far as I know.”

She added : “They have some very nice things, as well as the sticks.”

Jennifer Earle wrote in response: “The gentrification is complete.”

“Sometimes I feel like stokey has turned into a clichéd comedy sketch,” wrote another follower.

Andrea Norrington shared a photo of a chewed-up piece of wood, writing: “Looks like the dog has just chewed at least a tenners worth of stick.”

“Hipsters will buy any old tat as long as it's pricey & artisan,” joked Dawn Jagdev.

Kevin Liddy wrote: “That stick in the middle is exactly the one I've been looking for. Thanks for the heads up.”

But Alice Howard from Botanique said the sticks were worth the money and happy customers had included author and journalist Fleur Britten.

She said: "These aren't just any sticks. Even our shop dogs Goose and Bertie know not to touch them.

"They look quite nice displayed on a wall if you're into that kind of thing, I have a fair few at home.

"We had some as a shop display in our other shop on Exmouth Market for a while and we sold plenty.

"Sadly I haven't made my display of them to show them in use at the Stoke Newington shop yet so now here I am defending my top dollar stick collection."

Last year, a Muswell Hill interior design shop was mocked for selling painted logs at £10 each.

Customers could also bag a bargain by shelling out £15 for two or £50 for the entire batch.

(Source: Evening Standard)

An entire Manhattan village owned by black people was destroyed to build Central Park

When Reverend Christopher Rush laid the cornerstone of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1853, he placed in it a time capsule, a box that contained a bible, a hymn book, and copies of two New York papers, The Tribune and The Sun. These were mementos for future New Yorkers.

Rush, who escaped slavery and became the second ordained bishop of the AME, also delivered the church’s first sermon. He read in part from the First Epistle of Peter, an address to the oppressed and persecuted, assuring the congregation that “although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials,” salvation would reward those who kept the faith.

Prominent abolitionist Albro Lyons and Mary Joseph Lyons were residents of Seneca Village. (NY Public Library)

But even as he counseled hope, the church was doomed. What Rush didn’t know was that the land where the Church would stand, part of a thriving African American community, had been condemned two weeks before as part of the plan to create New York’s Central Park.

The community, called Seneca Village, began in 1825 and eventually spanned from 82nd Street to 89th Street along what is now the western edge of Central Park. By the time it was finally razed in 1857, it had become a refuge for African Americans. Though most were nominally free (the last slave wasn’t emancipated until 1827) life was far from pleasant. The population of African Americans living in New York City tripled between abolition and complete emancipation and the migrants were derided in the press. Mordecai Noah, founder of The New York Enquirer, was especially well-known for his attacks on African Americans, fuming at one point that “the free negroes of this city are a nuisance incomparably greater than a million slaves.”

Most landowners at the time refused to sell to African Americans. A white couple who lived in what was then a distant northern outpost of Manhattan was an exception, subdividing and selling off their land first to Epiphany Davis and Andrew Williams, two prominent members of the The New York African Society for Mutual Relief, and then to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. More members of the African Society, whose purpose was in part to build black communities, followed suit and purchased land too. Slowly, houses were built. Some of them were rather grand, two-story affairs, with barns and stables, and some were modest shacks. The area was eventually anchored by three churches and a school.

Seneca Village ran along the west side of what would become Central Park between 82nd and 89th streets. (NY Historical Society)

Owning land in Seneca Village meant more than finding a refuge from the slums and violence of Manhattan proper. Buying property meant voting rights (at least for men), as laws in New York at the time required that all voters own at least $250 worth of real estate. Seneca Village probably had a more radical purpose, too, as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Prominent abolitionists such as Albro Lyons, later recognized as a conductor on the railroad, owned land and lived there. In fact, the African Society so instrumental in founding the village was reputed to have a hidden basement for hiding runaway slaves. And the name of the village itself may have come from a philosophy tract called Seneca’s Morals, a book that was popular with abolitionist activists.

As Seneca Village was building up, however, support for Central Park grew, driven by some of the same pressures that created the African American enclave. The tip of the island of Manhattan was overflowing with people. The slums were spilling over as more and more immigrants arrived, especially after the Irish potato famine started in 1845. None of these conditions appealed to well-off New Yorkers, who had already started migrating further uptown, or out of town, by the 1840s.

Already, the Lennox family and other wealthy New York names owned swaths of land in the vicinity of the proposed park. Real estate developers easily foresaw the demand for an exclusive neighborhood bordering parklands.

More than three-fourths of the children who lived in Seneca Village attended Colored School №3 in the church basement. Half of the African Americans who lived there owned their own property, a rate five times higher than the city average. And while the village remained mostly black, immigrant whites had started to live in the area as well. They shared resources ranging from a church (All Angels Episcopal), to a midwife (an Irish immigrant who served the entire town).

But in 1857, it was all torn down.

Even as the church was being built on 86th street, then painstakingly painted white, the original settlers fought for their lands in court. Andrew Williams was paid nearly what his land was worth, after filing an affidavit with the state Supreme Court. Epiphany Davis was not as fortunate, losing hundred of dollars.

A sign commemorating the site of Seneca VillageManhattan’s first prominent community of African-American property owners—was dedicated in 2001.

By 1871, Seneca Village had largely been forgotten. That year, The New York Herald reported that laborers creating a new entrance to the park at 85th Street and 8th Avenue had discovered a coffin, “enclosing the body of a Negro, decomposed beyond recognition.” The discovery was a mystery, the paper reported, because “these lands were dug up five years ago, when the trees were planted there, and no such coffins were there at the time.” That’s unlikely, as the site was the graveyard of the AME church.

Researchers from Columbia, CUNY, and the New York Historical Society have been working on excavating the site of Seneca Village since the early 2000s. The work has been slow, with excavation starting in 2011.

The only official artifact that remains intact on the site is a commemorative plaque, dedicated in 2001 to the lost village.

(Source: Timeline)