Bay Ridge resident Linda Allegretti was power-walking along Shore Road in the spring of 2002, when she strode by a volunteer working in a community garden near 69th Street.
The verdant scene struck a nerve.
“It looked spectacular and I started taking notice of the area near me, where it was dark, dirty, and dangerous,” says Allegretti, who lived further up the serpentine street on a dim and blighted patch near Shore Road Park with crumbling sidewalks, a weed-strangled footpath, old toilet bowls and TVs tossed in with the litter, and overgrown brush marring the magnificent views of the New York harbor, the Verrazano Bridge, Staten Island, and the Statue of Liberty.
Fed up with the blot on her landscape, Allegretti marched into her councilman’s office and gave him a piece of her mind.
“I told him the park in front of my house was disgusting and he asked me if I wanted to do something about it, and I said I did,” says the former teacher, who recruited like-minded area residents, obtained a $3 million city grant, and established the Shore Road Garden Council to take care of the green space between Bliss Park on 69th Street and Cannonball Park on 101st Street.
She envisioned a sanctuary.
“I wanted an area where the community could sit and congregate, have events, play games, and enjoy the beauty,” says Allegretti, 69, who supervised a two-year rehabilitation of the hilly parkland between 92nd to 88th streets, including new lighting, sidewalks, gardens, benches, game tables, plantings, and a gazebo.
The Shore Road Garden Council eventually morphed into the Shore Road Parks Conservancy, and Allegretti and other volunteers continue to support their great outdoors with soil-erosion prevention projects, holiday tree lightings, seasonal concerts, and clean-ups — last fall’s litter haul at spots near 81st, 87th, 91st, and 97th streets filled a garbage truck.
The Woman of Distinction — a board member of the city’s Community Emergency Response Team and the South Brooklyn Citizens Corporation — launched her ambitious community project while volunteering at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a maximum security prison in upstate New York where she created a theater program for criminally insane prisoners. She helped them produce Halloween and Christmas shows to foster creativity and support them through tough times, but she ended up being uplifted by their grace under adversity.
“I found them to be inspirational because as horrible as their lives were, they didn’t give up trying to better themselves,” she says. “I thought that was pretty spectacular.”
Allegretti uses the word “spectacular” frequently to describe others and their work, but she is as sensational for transforming Shore Road Garden into a community recreation and resting spot, states Maria Latorraca, a volunteer who has lived in the area for 50 years.
“Shore Road Park used to be a neglected mess, but now nursery schools bring their classes there, older folks are there every single day, and everybody gets to use and enjoy it,” she says. “Linda wanted to have that for us, and that’s what we have.”
OCCUPATION: Volunteer.
COMPANY: Shore Road Parks Conservancy.
CLAIM TO FAME: Trying to make life better for people.
FAVORITE PLACE: The beach.
WOMAN I ADMIRE: My cousin, Gloria Bohan, for being a great business woman.
MOTTO: If not now, when?
