The Great Neck Park District is facing a conundrum over the proposal to rename the Parkwood sports complex to honor Great Neck’s only Olympic gold medalist, Sarah Hughes.
The board has just concluded its second public hearing on the topic – the first drew an outpouring of people opposed to the idea, while the second drew an even greater outpouring of people in favor.
The pickle the park board finds itself is deeper because it had taken the unprecedented action of renaming the ice rink for a tragic victim of 9/11, Andrew Stergiopoulos, a young man who grew up in the park district and played on the Great Neck Bruins ice hockey team. The decision was made in a climate of intense emotion and strong-armed pressure.
There were many of us who argued against the renaming at the time – Sarah had already wowed the world and brought honor to the nation at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, and in every instance and opportunity, acknowledged her roots growing up in Great Neck. Most probably, if the park board were not so pressured in the moment, probably would have thought up a better solution, such as a plaque in the lounge or in the hockey team rooms, or even renaming a hockey room for Andrew.
This followed swiftly – much too swiftly – after the park board took the unprecedented step of renaming Grace Avenue Park the Jonathan Ielpi Firefighters Memorial Park – after a true hero of 9/11, a firefighter who died in the fiery collapse of the World Trade towers, who grew up in Great Neck, raised his own family in Great Neck and continued to serve the community as a volunteer firefighter and chief of the fire company.
At the time, though, to overcome the aversion to associating a park with a specific person, the argument was made that the park would honor all of our firefighters who set their own lives aside and put their own lives on the line for the community.
Until the renaming of Grace Avenue Park (the argument was also made that it was named for the road, not for Grace, the former Mayor of New York City, who was responsible for developing much of Great Neck in the early years), no park had been named for a person. Arguably, if names were being stamped on things, there should have been something named for Louise Eldridge, the benefactor who is most responsible for a Great Neck Park District, and as astonishingly important woman in the course of women in American politics (she was the first woman to become mayor, just after women got the right to vote).
Considering this, Grace Avenue park was supposed to be known colloquially as Firefighters Park, but instead, is commonly referred to as Jon’s Park – directly contradicting the argument made at the time that the renaming would unfairly give “ownership” to a single person.
Again, this was the first park to be named for an individual.
Jon Ielpi also grew up playing hockey for the Great Neck Bruins. His hockey jersey hangs along with Andrew’s high above the rink.
And so, soon after renaming Grace Avenue for Ielpi, there was a rush to rename Parkwood Rink for Andrew.
At the time, Sarah Hughes had just brought the highest honor and recognition to Great Neck by her thrilling win at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, which even she said she was particularly proud of in terms of healing the nation’s pain after 9/11.
To console those who said at the time that Parkwood Rink – if it be renamed for anyone – should be named in Sarah’s honor, those attending that night’s park board meeting (Michael Zarin, who is spearheading the move now to rename Parkwood, was there), were told that once Parkwood sports complex had been renovated, there would be the opportunity to rename the entire facility then.
Then, there was a push to rename a third park facility for another 9/11 victim, Peter Frank. The park board held the line, somewhat, by putting the young man’s name on a sign, but stopping just short of officially changing Lakeville Park’s name.
We now have three facilities just in the Park District alone, that have been named for 9/11 victims – the only park facilities with names that have any association with individuals (not to mention the pocket park that Great Neck Plaza created, and the renaming of the Bayview Avenue Bridge in Saddle Rock the 9/11 Memorial Bridge).
But Michael Zarin has not forgotten that night when the park board gave a vague promise that there would be the opportunity to honor and enshrine Sarah Hughes at Parkwood.
Things have changed from 2002 – the intensity of emotion at the 9/11 tragedy and the elation at the Olympics win (remember the parade on Middle Neck Road, probably the greatest event in Great Neck’s history) – have dulled.
The argument against naming Parkwood for Hughes now is that Great Neck has had many famous and accomplished people.
But how many started their career at Parkwood, trained here, continue to come back here, and are such a positive inspiration and role model for our youngsters who can dream and aspire, and to the rest of us as well? Can anyone justify naming Parkwood for Groucho Marx? Or Madeleine Albright? Or Ring Lardner? Or Fanny Brice? Or Floyd Patterson? – just a few of the famous, important people to lived in Great Neck to be sure, but they had no direct involvement with Parkwood.
It was only weeks ago that Sarah Hughes and her sister, Emily, also an Olympian (2006), joined the annual Parkwood Skate School Show. How thrilling and inspiring for those youngsters!
Other communities that have raised Olympians honor them. So far, this community has done little to keep that Olympic flame alive.
The very least the park district can do is replace the banners for Sarah and Emily that hung so proudly above the rink (they were taken down during a renovation and lost; now we are told they are being replaced).
There already is a trophy case and plenty of recognition for the hockey teams. There should be at least an exhibit case – a mini-museum – that honors Sarah and Emily, and serves to inspire all of us with what it means to achieve the Olympic dream.
As for the name: Naming landmarks is a very significant. It establishes legacy and history and is a way of telling future generations “this was a person we need to remember.”
Often in history a tragedy has led to many public spaces being renamed: in Florida, there are schools renamed for the Challenger shuttle disaster, and Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher who perished; scores of schools were instantly renamed for John F. Kennedy after the assassination – but he was a President. But in most cases, there is a connection to achievement and accomplishment to a community, not just victimhood.
That’s what the park district achieved (or attempted to achieve) in renaming Grace Avenue the Jonathan Ielpi Firefighters Memorial Park, but which they failed to do when they bowed to the pressure of renaming the ice rink.
There are those who suggest that if a public space is to be renamed, it should be for someone who has had a lifetime of achievement, a career that showed service to the community.
Sadly, these days, facilities are rarely named for heroes, but for benefactors and sponsors, and names are too often wiped away regardless of how they have forged a connection with the local community (Shea Stadium, now Citifield; Enron Stadium, was named after William Alfred Shea, an attorney who was instrumental in acquiring the Mets for New York following the city’s abandonment by the Giants and the Dodgers in the 1950s).
To address the chaos that took place after the rash of 9/11 renamings, the park board instituted a more considered, studied process for renaming, setting criteria and a longer time frame, much as the school district has done (and now, the School District has changed its policy to avoid controversy over renamings).
The park board may want to avoid these instances of emotion taking over and is contemplating going back to a policy of naming facilities for their places, rather than particular people.
But in this matter, they created the problem when they renamed the rink for a young man who grew up here but who moved away to start a new life, so tragically cut short.
I am on the side of renaming for Sarah Hughes, the brightest star that Great Neck has produced in some time, and a person who does continually give back to the community through her continued inspiration. This younger generation is sorely in need of inspiring role models, and older people, grown cynical, can use some inspiration, as well.
But if the park district decides to go back to a policy of not naming spaces for individuals, what about adding the word Olympic or Olympian to Parkwood? As in Parkwood Olympic Sports Complex or Parkwood Olympian Sports Complex, with plaques at the rink for Sarah Hughes and Emily Hughes (as well as the banners and the display case).
That would honor Sarah, be a constant reminder, inspiration and source of pride in the community, and return us to a more rational renaming policy.
The park board is expected to announce its decision at its Monday, May 21 meeting.
