Summary of Survey Responses

In March 2004, as part of the Living Memorials Project, Open Road distributed surveys to children, teenagers, and adults, including students and teachers from East Side and New Design High Schools, students from PS 19 primary school, adults and children from Medina Masjid Mosque and school, Mary Help of Christians Church, neighbors, and business that face the park.

As of March 25th we received 50 completed surveys. The way different groups use the park and some of the ways they envision a living memorial are summarized below, divided into "user groups". Note: None of the survey respondents have begun to create designs, they are still in the fact finding stage with Open Road. They will use Cornell student design work to inspire and stimulate their design work, which will take place May-July 2004.

User Groups
1) Teenagers who come as volunteers/drop-in users of the park
2) Teenagers who are required to attend classes for academic credit (Science, Ecology)
3) Teachers
4) Parents
5) Neighbors (adult, child, teen)
6) Groups (Medina Masjid Mosque, Mary Help of Christians Church, Brotherhood, Beacon)
7) Businesses
8) Park Staff

1&2) Teenagers who come as volunteers/drop-in users of the park are our most active group in terms of planting, building and maintaining the park year round. This group comes to the park every day except Sunday, in all seasons including winter. This group does the majority of the stewardship work. After working with Open Road as volunteers for at least one year, teens can apply for jobs or develop small businesses in the park. Our current core group of 10 teens has been with us for 2-3 years. Their primary activities are playing sports and games, hanging out, propagating and selling plants, planting, cleaning, fixing broken pathways, furniture, garden beds, doing design and construction work, and doing youth development/peer conflict mediation activities with Open Road staff. Teen volunteers roam over virtually every area of the park and are very familiar with every area, in every season.

Teenagers who are required to come as students use the park in a very different way, but had similar survey responses so they are combined, below. Academic classes use Open Road park every day, school-year round. Teenagers who come as students use more limited areas of the park, they're graded on their work, and so they are less familiar with the whole park, but often very knowledgeable about a specific area, like the pond, greenhouse, or compost areas. 12th grade Science students do less stewardship work, since they are following a Regents curriculum. 7/8th grade Ecology students do some stewardship work if it is clearly linked to ecology.

A majority of teens said they would benefit from/use a Living Memorial. Teens expressed an interest in trees, plants, water (pools, ponds), benches, seating and programmed activities being used to bring people together. Teen volunteers and students overwhelmingly responded that they want the Living Memorial to reflect different cultures, and for there to be ongoing programs, events and staff that will bring diverse cultures together. "I don't like very patriotic things. No American flags". "It shouldn't just be one race" "No country should stand out among the rest of the countries" "It should be trees from many different countries". A majority also said they would not like to have any pictures of 9/11 or "do not talk too much about the tragedy" because that would upset them. However this is contradicted by a focus on images of the twin towers, references to 9/11 and suggestions to list victims names, sometimes in the same surveys that express a strong desire to not focus on 9/11. There are clearly mixed, contradictory feelings.

3) Teachers use Open Road park primarily in good weather in the fall and spring. They bring classes out on their own (a wide range; design, art, poetry, gardening, science, math, ecology) and they come out for tours with park staff. Teachers would like to see the Living Memorial improve opportunities for teaching and stewardship. Besides trees, ponds, plants and other living components, they'd like to see benches, picnic areas, and programs that would improve public use of the park.

Specific plants and images for Living Memorials suggested by teachers:
"Weeping willows to express sadness. Herbs around the willow to show healing. Trees arranged in a circle to represent the globe/earth. Circular benches around the trees"

"Put more sitting and shaded areas. A big swing for two people to sit in. A place to sit, be quiet, listen to the sounds of the park"

"1. Propagate weeping willows. 2. Rabbits 3. Grassy path amongst a grove of trees
4. Butterfly bushes. And plant more Bengali vegetables (mustard, potol, on a waist high trellis)."

"Fire hydrant, symbolizing fire fighters"

Most teachers stated that they didn't want to see an emphasis on 9/11, the twin towers, or any one culture:
"No images of twin towers-we don't need that" "Reflect multicultural"
"If you put different cultural items in the park different people will come and talk about it together"
"I will be offended if it's super patriotic or in anyway justifying U.S. aggression or war"
However, one teacher was interested in having the memorial be a replica of the twin towers, and would like to see the trees arranged in a 9/11 design.

4&5) Parents and neighbors use the park during open hours after school, weekends and in the summer, and for special events like school graduations, barbecues, birthday parties, weddings, and cultural events. All ages use the park; parents bring infants who crawl on the grass and play in the sandbox, children and teens play sports and hang out, people sit on benches in the shade or use garden beds to grow food. People use it as a public park and community garden after school and summer, as opposed to school use, when it is very much a school controlled playground and garden.

Parents and neighbors are very focused on safety, having the park be clean, having the park be open, and having many different programs going on. They would like the Living Memorial to support these, and bring more people into the park. They brought up concerns such as "representation of certain cultures/races and not others" and "I don't think it should be a picture of what happened. It would hurt them too much". Neighbors brought up "moving water (waterfall) and rocks" in their surveys, in addition to trees.

We are still collecting surveys from children. Several children so far declined to answer the survey and said they thought a Living Memorial was not a good idea. One child (10 years old) said it was because "It will change everything".

Children who come to the park as neighbors and not with a formal group or school use the park in the following way:
Free play, playing in the ponds, playing tag and playing with rocks in the rock area, using play equipment and jumping rope in the playground, making art, reading children's books in the greenhouse, looking at butterflies and insects, digging for worms, having birthday parties and eating meals with family. The children who come usually like to go to the same areas they have used over and over again, and seem to dislike change in the park.

6. Groups (Medina Masjid Mosque, Mary Help of Christians Church, Brotherhood, Beacon) use the park in ways that fit the mission of their group or the desires of individual members. Several leaders from the mosque (the Imam, co-Imam, and his extended family) are founding members who helped to create the park 10 years ago. Mary Help of Christians has been involved through the next door Beacon program for the last 5 years. Members of the Brotherhood are founding members of the park, including the park director, Nando Rodriguez. The Beacon program provides staff, funding and kids who attend park programs.

Since these groups are so diverse in race, culture, religion, and politics, we have always had lively debates at the park. Foods grown (and cooked) at the garden represent Bengali, Dominican, Puerto Rican, European-American, and African American culture. The growing of food is great unifying element in the park, people always share food as they're harvesting it and explain ways to cook their foods to others.

Members of the mosque reinforced the comments of other groups, saying they would not like to see "emphasis on one culture". They would like to see "anti-discrimination message written on a plaque (although we must be careful to not imply anything offensive or discriminating in this message)". They also requested "A plaque with locations of other living memorials sites and a plaque describing the living memorials project" They did not bring up specific memorial design ideas, but instead focused on cultural mixing, peace, growing food, passive reading areas, and making everyone feel welcome.

Members of the Brotherhood come to the park frequently from their brownstone in Harlem to help maintain the park, engage in youth leadership activities, and learn, as part of a long term mentoring program that brings African-American and Latino young men and adults together. Like Open Road, Brotherhood members maintain long term relationships and commitments with each other and the organization. We have a ten year long partnership with them. We will collect surveys from the Brotherhood members in the last week of March.

Mary Help of Christian's school works with our next-door Beacon program, and they also run a very successful public market on the 11th street and Avenue A corner of our block. In our Living Memorials scope we proposed to expand our own market to raise stewardship funds for the park and our Living Memorial, and we would like to enlist their help. While they have been coming to and using the park for many years, this would be our first formal partnership with them. We have not received surveys back from them yet.

The Beacon program serves 2,000 people a year in our adjacent school and in our park. Beacon programs open up schools to community use after school hours, weekends, and summer. We are one of the partners in the Beacon program based in East Side, and we receive modest yearly funding through Beacon to operate programs in the park. We expect to expand the Beacon use of the park this year, and would like the Living Memorial project to help with this. Beacon members range in age from 7 to 18, with the majority being 7 to 12 years old. Through the Beacon program and through East Side we have after school free use of computer labs, and one of our goals with the Living Memorial project is to create guides for the Oasis website so people can locate Living Memorials all over NYC. Park staff have begun training Beacon participants in guide writing and editing for this purpose.

Children and young teens from the Beacon program responded to the surveys, and would like a Living Memorial to "improve the greenhouse, pond and plants, flowers" They would like to see drawings, photos, and quilts" and "many colors to show friendship".

7. Businesses are primarily concerned with how Open Road Park improves the block and brings more customers to their stores. Our two adjacent businesses, a bike repair shop and a store that sells sculpture stone and tools are concerned with safety, noise and the cleanliness and overall appearance of the park.

8. Park staff are interested in the potential of the Living Memorial to bring more people into the park, and to add new, restful, healing areas. In response to community wishes to make the memorial reflect unity rather than differences, park staff are interested in how the memorial design can be symbolic instead of literal, and how themes of regeneration, renewal, and healing can be suggested in sensitive ways. The stewardship of the memorial is a great concern to park staff, and the natural changes of the memorial over time should fit the stewardship abilities of park staff and volunteers.