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Bronx students help rebuild Bear Mountain amphitheater - 18 April, 2008
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By Khurram Saeed
The Journal News
Bugs aside, Valexya Royster was having a splendid time yesterday at Bear Mountain State Park.
Royster was one of 18 high school students from the Bronx helping to rebuild an amphitheater at the park's Trailside Museums and Zoo as part of a school community service project.
The amphitheater, overlooking the Hudson River and the Bear Mountain Bridge, will reopen April 26 after years of disrepair.
The Bronx Lab School students spent six hours yesterday assembling benches, which are made of logs from locust trees.
"Boy, they did a lot of work in a very short time," said Timothy Englert, a development specialist for the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, which oversees Bear Mountain State Park.
Royster helped lift the 500-pound logs that made up the benches and then used a leveler to make sure they wouldn't wobble when people sat on them. Gravel was added or removed as needed to even out the ends.
Royster, who is 16 and in the 11th grade, said she always marveled at seeing a project done well.
"It's something different because I've never done something like this before," Royster said. "Now I get the chance to experience doing the job."
The students, who are in ninth through 11th grades, and three teachers arrived Wednesday morning in Rockland. They spent the past two nights sleeping at the 300-acre Camp Bullowa Boy Scouts camp.
Debbie George, a math and science teacher, said every Bronx Lab student this week was participating in a community service project, most of which were in New York City. But the students who ended up at Bear Mountain really wanted to be there - it was their first choice.
Not only is the project about giving back to a community, she said, it was also in preparation for Earth Day, which is Tuesday.
"We haven't spent a lot of time teaching about nature because we've really been experiencing it," said George, who was making her first visit to the Lower Hudson Valley.
She said the labor of setting up log bases and arranging the benches on them were, in itself, a valuable math lesson.
"It's actually a very challenging engineering project for them to get all these benches lined up right," George said. "They've learned a lot about precision and accuracy and how to apply what they've learned in school."
On Wednesday, the students spaced out the logs, cleared the path, which branches off the Geology Trail near the bear den, and helped throw out rotted trees and branches in the work area.
Today, the students will hike to the top of Bear Mountain and clean up any litter they find.
Tenth-grader Willie Guzman was sweating from carrying 40-pound base pieces by himself.
"It's hard because I don't work construction, so I'm struggling with this," Guzman said. Otherwise, he said he was having fun.
Sleeping also has been a challenge.
"It was too quiet because I'm used to the city," Guzman said, adding he missed the cacophony of late-night traffic and subways.
Englert said the high-schoolers were one of many groups that had come to the park to help resurrect the amphitheater, which has been in "hibernation" since the late 1980s.
"A lot of muscle went into this," Englert said.
Next week, he and park staff will clean and resurface all the benches and add small brass plaques to honor Palisades Interstate Park Commission supporters. The amphitheater's grand opening will feature live music acts and lectures on the park's history.
At that time, a bench will be auctioned to the public to raise funds for programs at the amphitheater.
Reach Khurram Saeed at ksaeed@lohud.com or 845-578-2412.
Photo: From left, Rhashan Kendricks, 17, Jeffrey Morales, 16, and Fernando Acosta, 16, all of the Bronx Lab School, install a log "knickerbocker" bench. They helped yesterday to put the finishing touches on the rebuilt amphitheater at Bear Mountain Trailside Museums and Zoo.
(Kathy Gardner/The Journal News Photos by)
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