Photo by Adi Talwar
The gridiron bustle could only be heard, not seen, at Williamsbridge Oval Park. A gruff voice barks “Get up! Get down!” as a sharp whistle signals an invisible command. Tiny helmeted silhouettes buzz about mid-field in a pre-determined pattern, shifting carefully between the goalposts.
It’s dusk at the Oval, with virtually no visibility save for distant, orangey glows illuminating over the multi-purpose field. It’s there where Drake Holliday blindly feeds a plug from a generator to a socket.
It’s past 5 p.m. on Nov. 3, pitch black after Daylight Saving Time, and practice for the Bronx Knights, a peewee team for which Holliday serves as president, must go on. The trio of floodlights Holliday’s set up, more suitable for home repairs, is the best he could do. The silhouettes, young athletes dressed in football gear, transform into blurry players, thanks to fluorescent beams that supply pockets of light. It’s enough to avoid a serious collision, and at least see the pigskin.
Practice could be simpler and productive, notes Holliday, if the park had high-powered stadium lights, a sorely sought-after resource. In some ways, the glare of stadium lights, a slice-of-life rite for young athletes basking in their first-ever moments of gridiron glory, has slipped away. The pageantry of football remains incomplete for these young players wanting some lights.
“Many of the other parks we go through around the city–we compete with other teams—they have the very lights we’re talking about,” said Holliday. “It’s extremely difficult to practice and it’s extremely difficult to compete with organizations that have lights.”
The lack of adequate lighting has presented several inconveniences for the Bronx Knights, which was formed in 2012 by Holliday and his wife, Latanya Wilkinson. She stood on the sidelines, flashlight in one hand, as she manned a table stacked with recently developed team photos.
So far, they’ve taken the issue to the de Blasio Administration. Holliday admits that while they “haven’t gotten the runaround, we haven’t gotten the result we’re looking for.”
For the 150 youngsters, playing football in total darkness serves as a test to their interest in football that comes with plenty of risk. With scant lighting, several young athletes have abandoned the sport altogether, dashing a rite that could very well serve as a ticket to higher aspirations.
Others, such as Jonathan Jenkins, a third-year quarterback for the club, stuck it out. But he’s long realized his disadvantage. “My receivers can’t see the ball in the dark,” said Jonathan, a 12-year-old who aspires to play high school football.
Juan Carlos, a first-year cornerback, finds the no-light quandary to have limited running plays, feeling completely unprepared. “There was one game, we went to Greenpoint, and in the night all the lights were on, and it was perfect,” Juan recalled.
“It just doesn’t give them the drive to run in the dark,” said Wilkinson of the players. “That’s why we went out and bought our own lights. And it helps, but it doesn’t light up the whole park.”
Those who remained are “determined not to be a victim of their circumstance,” said Holliday, adding the light issue impacts the evening park goers taking an evening jog or engaging in some last-minute romp around the jungle gym.
Sheila Sanchez, president of Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval (FOTWO), remains neutral on the installation. She has considered factors that include “how invasive they will be for the neighbors” residing in two-family homes and residences that hug the Oval.
Stadium lights would likely be considered a capital project, since it could be considered a park improvement. Determining a capital park project is often a long, cumbersome process falling under the discretion of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The agency works with the New York City Council, whose members allocate funds for a project on appeal from constituents. The agency’s capital budget stands at $803.2 million. Park projects can be tracked via a website the agency created.
The park has no recorded project except a $750,000 skateboard area funded by Councilman Andrew Cohen, whose district covers Norwood, at the request of constituents. The last major renovation work at the Oval took place in 2013, when the Oval’s newly renovated $5.2 million Recreation Center opened.
For lights to be installed, community boards would provide input, according to Mario Lopez, a spokesman for the Parks Department. “Stadium lighting indirectly casts light on the adjacent community as well, so the community board would have to be in agreement with construction of the lights,” said Lopez. “It is up to the parks commissioner and borough commissioner to make the final determination.”
After the Capital Budget Office estimates the project, funding is then asked of the local elected official, in this case Cohen.
A spokesperson for Cohen said the project has been proposed under Participatory Budgeting, a months-long process where constituents decide how they would want to spend $1 million in capital monies. Cohen has adopted the program for the second year in a row. Though constituents have requested lights, procuring them would typically cost upwards of $1.5 million, though an engineer determines a true estimate.
At the sidelines, parents begrudgingly accept the lack of lights. On the night of Nov. 3, Juan Diaz, a parent, noticed an ambulance had arrived to the park for an emergency unrelated to football, its fiery sirens cutting the night. “That’s about the most lights we got in here,” said Diaz.
admin
Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
English
Arabic
Bengali
Chinese (Simplified)
French
Spanish
The Bronx Buccaneers who also practice at the Williamsbtidge Oval and call it call it our home field have to make adjustments for no lights at the Oval. During the playing season especially when Day Lights Savings Time Ends, the Buccs cannot host games after 4pm And have had to move our practices to another field.. This has been an inconvenience and a challenge especially since we hold the permit at the Oval for Saturday evenings and cannot fully enjoy it. We have 3 teams and trying to host 3 games with such restrictions is difficult. Most park department fields have lights that automatically turn on and shut off to regulate usage. That could definitely be an advantage to energy costs and park usage. It may also make it safer dance people are in the park in the dark anyway. I pray those who could get light at the Oval would work hard to do so. It can’t make the current situation any worse than it is now.
I lived most of my life in the Norwood neighborhood since 1959. I grew up on East 209th and Decatur, attended and graduated Saint Brendan School. Left the “neighborhood for a short time in 1971 until 1976. Returned to Hull Avenue and 209th and lived there for another 22 years until I moved to Dutchess County in 1998. During all that time I used the park often and worked with other folks who likewise did. The Oval never had lights on the field. It is just that a field… not a stadium. The field was permitted to be used while the park was open. The park closed at dusk and the fences are or were at that time supposed to be secured with a chain and lock. This park is surrounded with residences. Apartment buildings and Private houses. These folks should not be subjected to the noise that would be generated by these after dark games.Of all the many young men that played football and came from this neighborhood, I have never known one that suffered any consequences for not playing at night!!
The community center closes at 9:00pm, the park closes at 10:00pm, it gets dark at 5:30pm after daylight savings time!! If the lights go off at 9:00pm when the other activities in the center are done, how is that a problem?
With lights it would have the potential to be at its worst. Football practice on one side- many more situations on the other.
Now you do bring up a great idea. You called it your home field. So did thr other organization. If so then let me propose to both of you ways to take ownership
Have tasha speak with sheila. Yes we all know each other and are big fans and supporters of the buccs league
But getting lights put up to invite more avtivity in the park after hours has always been an issue in the hood, for many reasons, security being one. Just today, someone was sadly stabbed in the park
But “ownership” ideas, coordinated with institutions like 52- could provide a safe atmosphere, which could be incusive of your requesting for lights
The park and the community center are already open until 9:00pm, the lights could go off when the center closes, not in the middle of the night. We don’t like to run afterwork(around 6:00pm), because it is already dark. The reason the police erect flood lights in crime ridden neighborhoods is to discourage unwanted activity. Lights do not attract stabbings, a dark park does.