By Thomas Tracy
Talk about a senior moment!
Millennium Development’s Marine Park Active Adults program reached a milestone on Nov. 7 when it signed up its 3,000th member when Ann Pollock signed up for the group’s exercise and social events to be held in the park.
Pollock came in with her sister Gerti Orlando, and when the two were told that one of them had made history, they joked over who should get the honor — which Pollock graciously accepted.
Pollock joined Rosemary Carro, the widow of Carmine Carr, for whom Marine Park’s new $16 million Marine Park Field House is being named, in cutting a special 3,000th cake to commemorate the moment.
The group, which formed in 2005, is planning to hold many programs in the new park house, which is expected to open up next year after being plagued with contractor defaults and cost overruns.
The field house was supposed to be completed in 2009, but the city says the environmentally conscious technology the building will utilize — it’s constructed with recycled materials and has a green roof and solar cells that will generate five percent of the building’s energy — has proven to be a problem for the contractors hired to do the job. The latest delay was caused when the contractor hired to build the building’s high-tech geo-thermal heating and cooling system defaulted and the city couldn’t easily find a suitable replacement.
The field house, which can hold just 170 people, will act as a central hub for all the activities the program provides. The exercises, social events and field trips will all happen either outside the field house or somewhere else, said Paul Curiale the executive director of Millennium Development and the creator of the program.
“The size of the building is not going to stop our plans,” said Curiale, who began the Marine Park Active Adults program with former Marine Park Carmine Carro. “Having the building will help give us an identity all our own. And it’s green will highlight Marine Park, which is truly a treasure in itself.”
Councilman Lew Fidler (D-Marine Park) noting that the new field house will be an improvement over the Salt Marsh Nature Center. The city Parks Department let Marine Park Active Adults program headquarter themselves at the nature center — which is across the street from the park — until the field house is built.
“Whatever problems the program currently has with space will actually be lessoned because the field house will be larger,” Fidler said. “And not everyone in the program will be there at the same time. People will come in and go out depending what’s on the menu that day.”
Pollock wasn’t the only person to sign up for programs on Monday.
Curiale said that a handful of others, including a 96-year-old man, are now also on bard, bring total membership up to 3,005.
“And all of them have accepted our challenge to live longer, live healthier and enjoy life in Brooklyn,” Curiale said.
“That’s our goal.”
The Marine Park Active Adults program holds activities at the Salt Marsh Nature Center [Avenue U and E. 33rd Street in Marine Park; (718) 421-2021] Monday through Thursday beginning at 10 am. To learn more contact Millennium Development at (718) 444-0101 or visit www.milldev.org.
Reach reporter Thomas Tracy at ttracy@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2525.
