DO NOT THROW ANYTHING ANYWHERE IN NYC/ EXCEPT in DESIGNATED TRASH RECEPTICALS IT'S THE LAW
"It shall be unlawful for any person, their agent, employee, or any person under their control to suffer or permit any dirt, sand, gravel, clay, stone rocks, rubbish, building rubbish, sawdust, shavings or trade or household waste (tin plates, plastic bottles, plastic sheeting to sit on, spices, food, clothing, shoes), refuse, ashes (Cremated Remains), manure, garbage, rubbish or debris of any sort or any other organic or non-organic material or thing other offensive matter (Dead Chickens, Goats) being transported in a dump truck or other vehicle to be dumped, deposited (left behind after worship) or otherwise disposed of in any street, lot, park (Ferry Point Park/Pugsley Creek/Castle Hill Park), publicity or privately owned."
-Section 16-119 of the Administrative Code
of the City of New York
Dead chicken above one of 4 or more decapitated a year....one decapitated baby goat each year, same area
some get away and run around Schley Ave. and up Brush Ave. if we catch them they are adopted upstate on a farm.
Volunteers from our neighborhood Monsignor Scanlan HS hold up some Hindu articles of worship.
Hindu's as well as many other religions consider an image of a Deity as a passage way to help contact the Spirit of the Deity and invite them to join their circle of prayer.
WORSHIP
In 2001 this was a typical site along various areas of our waterfront. The black cloth is used by the priest while in worship, the yellow cloth is 9 yards of "Sari" (an Indian style Dress) as a Gift to Mother Ganga. The pink, red and white are various prayer flags usually with images of the God attached to bamboo poles and stuck in the sand surrounding the blessed prayer area.
WORSHIP TO DIFFERENT VARIATIONS OF THE ONE HINDU GOD CREATES MUCH DEBRIS.
2001 Winter above 2009 Summer below
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE HINDU RELIGION IN GENERAL?
CHECK OUT THESE LINKS:
http://www.hinduwebsite.com/puja.asp
Read above... the practice of Puja (Worship) to the various Deities.
Read below about defamation and degradation of the deities and there idols or visual appearance
understandable and applaudable but very confusing to the waterfront debris observer.....
http://www.hindujagruti.org/denigrations/stopdenigration.php
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Message from Friends of Ferry Point Park:
In our research to develop a compromise to the ongoing problem of Hindu Debris in the Waterways of US and Canada….
We came across a website (above link) that is concerned about a cartoon on channel 13 which they feel defamates their Gods in the depiction of the characters in the cartoon. I sympathize with their feelings and have actually enjoyed that cartoon a few times while washing dishes or doing laundry.
BUT I must jot down this note about the Defamation of Hindu Deities and the Hindu religion in general as seen through the eyes of an environmentally oriented group of volunteers in Bronx, NY 10465.
How can you complain about the possible damage to the image of these deities when practicing Hindus leave the Deities images in public amoungst mounds of "Garbage, dead chickens and goats, hundreds of flies, rotting fruit, human and animal feces and also other waterfront decay?"
Place: Along waterfronts of NYC and other cities (specifically Ferry Point Park, Bronx NY)
We have had over 1000 volunteers(since 2005) cleaning up the debris left behind after serious, well meaning Hindus practice Puja to various idols along our waterfront.
We respect your religion and actually admire most of the teaching it invokes….but the practice of leaving all this debris on our public Parks Shoreline brings only curiosity and then disgust to the volunteers that clean it up.
We are proud of you that you stand up for the degradation of the images and names of your deities….
BUT you need to find a compromise on the practice of leaving your precious, worshiped, images and idols from being degragated by being washed around in the raw sewage, mud,vegetables and fruit that has been rotting in the sun, heads and bodies from de capitated chickens and goats that are found each year amoungst the idols and images of these gods..….
Worship to a water God (Mother Ganga) is a bit hypocritical when the worship leaves behind substances that are known to deminish the quality of the water and bring carcinogens into the stomachs of our fish and fowl.
Using public waterfronts for ceremonies that leave so many plastic idols, plastic bottles from the water needed in the ceremony, tin plates ( for floating the offerings) , un opened coco nuts, yellow, red, black, white cloth bamboo poles for prayer flags, bottles of incense oil, spices, fabric flowers… and other non biodegradable offerings to the Mother Ganga is "wrong" in so many ways.
Although we have reached out through the media to various temples…this practice still exists.
The act of worship in this way …is actually a degradation of that same deity from the eyes of a non Hindu observer.
To see and Idol covered with mud, broken arms and legs from being washed back and forth against the rocks, does not show respect to that God.
To see birds “Pooping” on a wet, dirty, printed photos of artistry depicting a Hindu God does not show respect to this God.
There are many Religions practiced in NYC and the only places you see "Religious Statues" are in Church entranceways, gardens, cemetary stones or dashboards. You do not find Religious idols treated in disrespectful ways.
To witness families coming to the park with a shopping carts full of offerings and leaving it all in the water does not show respect to the Littering Laws of our City, the Laws of our Park, the Laws meant to protect our water quality, the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation cleaning budget, the other visitors rights to a beautiful view, the health of animal life in the park and water, nor the Gods worshipped or the religion that brings this debris to us year after year.
Even though we try to explain the beauty of the worship, the tons of debris picked up repeatedly by our Girl Scouts of various religions, Catholic School Students, Millenium Arts Students of various religions and other volunteers…leaves most saying to us...."Why are the Hindus allowed to keep throwing “garbage” in our water and on our shores"? "Why don't the Police Stop Them".
I would not worry so much about the cartoon on channel thirteen which seems flattering to your religion compared to the disgust evoked by the rotting piles of obvious Hindu debris in our waterways and on our shorelines of the Bronx and Brooklyn.
Our next step is to try to work with NYC Commission on Human Rights and Parks Dept. to give the Hindu Religion Legal Days to worship along our shores. The temples will each be permitted by the Parks Dept. and or DEP to worship on 5? days during the warm season. (April through Nov?)
Fishing nets with floats can be stretched out before the time frame for worship. After the articles have been dispursed, our volunteers or the parks borough crew can pull in the nets and bag the debri or better yet have a garbage truck available to haul it away.
Any worshippers not following the legal "Amnesty" days of worship will be procecuted to the full extent of the law. (which may include fine or imprisionment or both) (especially for decapitations of animals).
Let’s work towards a solution for this problem….www.ferrypointpark.org
Make it a cleaner, more beautiful Ferry Point Park and a more respectful worship ceremony.....
The link above offers an explaination of Puja. This would be the practice of inviting a "God" or "spirit" to join a group along the waterfront (usually in the area marked off by the bamboo flags). The spirit is then treated as a guest would be in your home. The spirit is given a seat and offered water, clothes, shoes, food, insence, flowers, etc.
The idols found are used to help communicate with the specific "God"
Waterfront cleanup project It's My Park Day May 15th 2010
Latest idol finds on the park shore
This family below has adapted their prayer worship of mother Ganga.
They throw and float diifferent offerings including a 9 yard length of cloth in the water
BUT! then they remove the yellow cloth and lay it on the grass in the sun to dry while they eat their ceremonial sweets. They then take the (dyed white cotton cloth) yellow cloth home wash it and donate it to charity or send it to India to be used by another family as floor cover (rug). 
Some Hindu Families have adapted their worship to include the proper disposal of all ceremonial items after they pay homage to the water goddess "Mother Ganga" (above giver and taker of all life).
Or other Deities....
Others continue to leave behind 20 to 50 pounds of debris (per family) floating in the Westchester Creek/East River junction of Ferry Point Park.
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Environmental information:
scroll past for more Hindu articles ...
FERRY
Salt marshes play a critical role in the support of human life, acting as natural filtration systems by trapping pollutants that would otherwise contaminate our bays and oceans. Salt marshes, including those at
When the last of the glaciers melted 7,000 years ago, the oceans rose to their present levels. Sediments washed from the land were deposited offshore in narrow sandy strips, forming long islands parallel to the shoreline. These barrier beaches received the pounding surf on their ocean side, but had calm, protected bays behind their landward shores. While the waters were calm enough for vegetation to take root, the presence of saltwater made survival difficult. One species, however, saltmarsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), was able to colonize the flat expanses of sand and silt, which were covered twice a day by the ocean’s tides. Today, the grass is still found along the Atlantic coast.
As this specialized grass spreads, its stems trap floating debris. Sediments and particles of decaying matter slowly build up, forming nutrient-rich mud. This mud, called detritus, supports life on the marsh. It is the basis of a complex food web in which energy is passed from one organism to another. The fiddler crab (Uca pugnax) and ribbed mussel (Geukensia demissa) have developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the cordgrass. While the crabs and mussels benefit from feeding on decaying matter trapped within cordgrass roots, cordgrass gains from the fiddler’s burrowing, which aerates the soil, and the mussel’s excretion, which provides necessary nitrogen.
At the end of each season, the cordgrass dies, creating a spongy peat. Each year’s peat layer raises the surface of the marsh, enabling it to colonize new territory. A variety of plants with less salt tolerance can colonize the peat, as it is out of the range of most of the high tides. This causes the formation of two separate plant communities, the intertidal marsh and the salt meadow. A third type of salt marsh community is the mudflat. Each of these communities has its own distinctive vegetation, insects, fish, birds, and mammals that have adapted to survive in a saltwater environment. While salt marshes do not have a very wide variety of species, the volume of life present is remarkable.
Ferry Point Park is divided in half, with the east side a common reed (Phragmites australis) plantation and the west a landscaped parkland, all growing on landfill. Pioneering cottonwoods (Populus), cherries (Prunus), birches (Betula,), and willows (Salix) have broken through the reeds in the east. The manicured parkland flanking Westchester Creek’s outlet has grown more wild. High grasses and herbs, numerous saplings, and unpruned hornbeam trees (Carpinus) provide excellent wildlife habitat. Bits of salt marsh and beach hug the park’s shores. Uncommon winter birds, like the snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca), can be observed at
Since industrialization, human activity has destroyed many marshes. Where marshes are disturbed, reeds often grow in place of cordgrass. Since reeds do not decompose into as nutritious a substance as cordgrass, a reed marsh does not contribute as much to coastal ecosystems as a cordgrass marsh. In the last 200 years, humans have also filled over 80 percent of the city’s original salt marshes for construction. While recent conservation efforts have improved the condition of marshes, this valuable ecosystem continues to disappear from the City at an alarming rate.
RAW SEWAGE GOES INTO WESTCHESTER CREEK ON A REGULAR BASIS:
The following is some info on the importance of Salt Water Marshes....Westchester Creek has 7 Combined Sewage Overflows (CSO's) that enter this waterfront...A COS is an outlet for the pipes that transport a mixture of Sewage from our Homes....and the run off of water from our Roof, Sidewalks, Streets, Highways etc. These pipes also carry "Floatables" (soda cans, water bottles, debris of all kinds that float) in the pipes from the Catch Basins in our roadways.
4 of these 7 are active during a rainy day when the Hunts Point Sewage Treatment Plant is unable to handle all the extra water and debris that enters the Combined Sewage Pipes from the Runoff in our streets. During a heavy rain or especially a Hurricane Westchester Creek and
THE SALT WATER MARSHES clean the sewage...but the floatables are supposed to be collected by a "Skimmer" run by the DEC. The skimmer is a boat that "skims" off the top of the water and collects the floating debris which includes mostly plastic bottles/ styrofoam/wood/.
We have approx...200 feet long by 25 feet of floatables in our Salt Water Marsh.
The floatables take up the area where plants can grow. As the plants die off in the Salt Water Marsh...the sewage is not filtered and the oxygen count of the water goes down....the small animals that need the oxygen die off and actually contribute to the decay of the healthy system.
The DEC (Dept. of Environmental Conservation) has shown that our Creek is in trouble...the oxygen level is diminishing...so far the fish are able to survive but if you catch one you are not supposed to eat it because of the pollutants found in the fish. You can wade in the water but don't swallow any due to the toxins and bacterial count?
Yet our floatables are left to absorb more of the plant space each year....
DEP says the shores are unapproachable by skimmer and the large clean-up must be done by hand.
We are afraid to let teenagers stomp around in the floatables that can contain hidden wood with large rusty nails.
This is why the Hindu ceremonies become so detrimental to the Salt Water Marsh....
The materials that are thrown into the waterfront do not get pulled into the deep water when the tide goes in or out. Instead the yellow cloth material is pushed slowly down to the Marsh which is located around the bend from the ceremonial area.
The material is then slowly buried by the eroding sand of the shoreline of the park south of this problem.
The plants again lose more area to have their roots develops. The root system cannot penetrate this cloth and the plants do not grow in these large areas.
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Hindu Worship continued:
The main ceremony that each family does on an annual basis is to thank the Mother "Ganga" for all she gives to them throughout the year. The basic idea is to give back to her symbolic small portions of everthing she gives throughout the entire year.
Cloths, Various Foods & spices, Flowers, Various Fruits (Coconuts-Bannanas-Melons-Grapes-Apples-Mangos), Various Drinks (Milk-Water), Leaves from Trees, Money (that if found can be used to buy ice cream but not food).
Shoes are removed out of respect before entering the designated area which symbolizes her Home.
Many Worshippers Shoes and articles of clothing are left behind during ceremony and they also clutter the salt water marsh.
BAD NEWS AND PHOTOS...THE PLOVERS ARE GONE????
BOTTLE OF RITUAL SPICES LAYS NEXT TO PIPING PLOVER.
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ARTICLE SECTION: Ferry
| Holy ritual, unsightly mess |
| Hindu offerings too voluminous for tiny riverside |
By BILL EGBERT Daily News Sept. 25, 2006 |
Ferry Point Park West lies just to the west of the Whitestone Bridge, along the bank of Westchester Creek, offering a serene locale that some local Hindus have begun using for riverside ceremonies. The ritual, called a Mother Ganga Puja, honors the river goddess with offerings of fruit and yellow cloth, but the debris worshipers leave behind is causing tensions with local park advocates. "I've got nothing against anybody's religion," said Dorothea Poggi of the Ferry Point West Coalition. "We just want to keep the park clean." Last weekend, Poggi, along with 10 Girl Scouts and six Parks Department workers, picked up cloth, shoes and pie pans that had accumulated along the water's edge. "It was three months' worth of stuff," she said. "We collected about 600 pounds of debris." In addition to offering 15 feet (correction 27 ft) of yellow cotton fabric to the river and floating aluminum trays bearing sliced fruit on the water, some devotees disrobe to bathe in the river. After they come out, they don ceremonial garb and leave their street clothes on the bank, believing the gift will encourage Mother Ganga to answer their prayers. "It is a very ancient belief," said Vishnu Sukul, priest of the Vishnu Mandir, a Hindu temple at 1216 Noble Ave. But Sukul said he's trying to bring the ancient ritual into the modern age. "Our temple is in the process of discouraging people from putting the whole cloth into the river," he said. "We do care about the environment, but some people are slow to change old habits." The priest said that there are more than 20,000 Hindus in the Bronx, and getting the word out about more eco-friendly ceremonies takes time. Poggi also said that she has seen some changes since she began raising the issue with local Hindu temples. "I've seen compromises," said Poggi. "I've seen groups cut a small piece of fabric for the offering - not five yards of fabric per person." The city Parks Department acknowledges an increase in litter at Ferry Point, but says that since the ceremonies are held without permits, it's difficult to hold anyone accountable. "At this time, we have no permitted groups in this area and we have stepped up our patrol in order to decrease the litter as well as investigate which party is responsible for the increase," the department said in a statement. "If we find that there are groups staging unauthorized events, we will work with them so that they comply with rules and post bonds as necessary." |
Offerings to Mother Ganga, Worries About Mother Nature
By JENNIFER BLEYER
January 7, 2007
Dorothea Poggi marched past the muddy cricket fields and weathered picnic benches to a little stretch of beach in
“Look, this is her,” said Ms. Poggi, 55, a signmaker and the founder of the Ferry Point Park West Coalition, a community group. “I think the ritual is beautiful. I just wish they would stuff it in the garbage pail.”
The picture is of Mother Ganga, the Hindu goddess of the river, and the ritual in question involves offerings to her that are made on the banks of Westchester Creek. According to Pandit Vishnu Sukul, the priest of the 500-member Vishnu Mandir temple in the Unionport section, the ritual, which is held year round, involves floating yards of yellow fabric topped with offerings of fruit, flowers, incense and money while prayers are said. In
“It just doesn’t go away,” Ms. Poggi said, sighing. “In the summer, there’s at least 30 times what’s here.”
Mr. Sukul said he had recently addressed the issue by instructing his temple’s members not to leave ritual material on the beach, as it is “not really environmentally friendly.” He has also made announcements about it on “Voice of Hinduism,” his weekly program on BronxNet television.
Still, Mr. Sukul conceded: “I cannot control all the Hindus in the
Ms. Poggi has tried to tackle the problem by organizing annual beach cleanups and by talking to Hindu groups she sees coming to the park with black trash bags full of ceremonial items. In the park one day last week, she was pleased to spot a stretch of fabric billowing out from a trash can.
“Just seeing that in the garbage pail makes me feel better,” she said. “The ritual is not to poison the water. If it’s not biodegradable, it shouldn’t go in.”
January 3rd Jennifer Blyer from the NY TIMES interviewed Dorothea Poggi at the site of the Hindu Ceremonies....this is the time of year where the debris is normally at the least. but there were still signs of the ceremonies going on.
January 4th Susan Farley a freelance photographer for the NY TIMES walked the beach area with Dorothy where the Hindu Debris is a problem.
There should be an article in the Sunday Times on Jan. 7th. reviewing the problem and educating the Hindus that have their ceremonies at the waterfronts of NYC that this is not going to stop without their help. The volunteers cannot keep up with the tremendous amount of debris that is left behind...please keep your plates and aluminum foil etc. from blowing away during the ceremony...at least tie them in one bag so they can be picked up in one spot before they tangle up into the weeds. Please collect the flags and material after your prayers...Please put your wet clothes and shoes in a garbage pail or at least tie them in a plastic bag so someone else can depose of them before they float into the important salt water marshes. I have been told by many people that they can't believe that this mess is from Indians or Guianese because they are such clean people. How can they make such a mess and walk away? I tell them that I have watched it happen over and over and have spoken with many of they worshippers and it seems that they believe they are casting away the old...the bad...the offenses...so they don't want to take them home with them.
DON'T TAKE THE BAD FROM THE PAST YEAR HOME...OK !!! DO THE CEREMONY... SAY YOUR PRAYERS...GATHER THE SYMBOLIC ITEMS AND THROW THEM IN THE GARBAGE....NOT IN OUR BEAUTIFUL WATER AND PARKLAND....
One of the Hundreds of Families using this beach for Ganga Puja...
Priest leads the prayers....EVERYTHING you see here on the blue tarp will be left behind, except the shopping cart and the people and most of the time the sandy tarp (or plastic sheeting) as well.
The average family creates a beautiful arrangement of offerings...coconuts, flowers, fruit, 9 yards of yellow cloth, palm leaves, mango leaves, herbs and spices, insence, and scented oils around a center image of a particular "God". Many of the worship items are sent out on the water floating in ceramic, styrofoam or tin plates. After the ceremony most Hindus leave the bags, cloth, packages, containers, etc. on the beach where they are swept 50 feet into the salt water marsh by the tides where they pile up and become wrapped around immovable rocks, half buried in wet sand making them exhausting if not impossible in many cases to remove....The Parks Department does not clean the beach that is in the tidal area at all....this is where the main debris ends up...
The debris stays there until our volunteers pick it up or concerned visitors lend a hand by placing the dried out cloth in the garbage pails before they become wrapped around the rocks and embedded in the sand.
2006 Our attempts to keep up with just the last Three years of debris have been exhausting and not very rewarding. We had hoped that with the vivid photos handed to Hector Aponte at the request of Adrian Benepe at a meeting over a year ago that we would have gotten some help by now... the main groups of volunteers that started helping a few years ago refuse to pick up any more Hindu Debris...they say it is the Citys responsibility to have sanitation of the Parks Dept. stop the refuse or pick it up. The last Littoral cleanup that we did required adults to clean the dangerous heavy debris up first before the 10 girlscouts helped us pile up and count the smaller debris. We need some signs that would state the law that is illegal to dump anything in NYC waters.
Erica Ferrari of News 12 interviews Priest
This Priest is leading abeautiful, sincere ritual that becomes the terrible mess of leftover debris when many Hindus practice their faith without thinking of the actual result on Ganga when they leave all the debris behind...
"Cleanliness is next to Godliness" a quote from Pandit Vishnu Sukul.
Respect Mother Goddess Ganga by removing the debris that does not feed the Birds or Fish...Crack the coconuts so the animals can eat them...use ceramic insence holders instead of the tin plates to float the incense....Use the thin mesh type cloth that drys fast, Emmerse the yellow cloth, say your prayers then hang it to dry as you eat the foods....then take it with you...wash it and give it away....
Maybe you can reuse the same cloth each year???? or exchange it with a neighbor once washed???
Maybe you can start off with a 9yards cut off a 12 inch cloth and remove 1 inch each year for twelve years to let it float away and symbolize the gift of the cloth to Ganga???
.
Duck untangled and let free / caught in fringe of Flags with tide coming up 2005... 2 others found dead 2006 Beach area where "Piping Plovers", "Swans", and other shore birds make their homes...for how long??? De- capitated goat 2005. Pigeon bleeding witnessed 2007 2 De-capitated chickens/ 1 rooster/ small horseshoes-horns-knife found 2007
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---Plastic Idols 2006
2 of the multitude of offerings left in bottles
many family members ashes are deposited after cremation
News 12 and Dotti missed each other and did not get to do the update....
2007 THIS YEAR THERE IS THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS...
FIRST THE GOOD NEWS....DUE TO OUR PERSISTANCE ON THIS MATTER...THE SECTION OF THE BEACH THAT IS USUALLY A DISGUSTING MESS OF SHOES, CLOTH, FLAGS, FRUIT, FLOWERS,PLASTIC BAGS, TIN PLATES, ETC....ACTUALLY WAS A PLEASANT PRETTY BEACH WITH A FEW BIODEGRADABLE CEREMONIAL DEBRIS LEFT BEHIND....THERE WERE A FEW "SARIS" YELLOW, WHITE AND BLACK CLOTH, BUT JUST A FEW....THERE WERE COCONUTS AND TINPLATES ETC. PACKED NEATLY NEXT TO THE TRASH CAN FOR THE PARKS DEPT., THERE WAS A FAMILY DRYING OUT THE YELLOW CLOTH TO BRING HOME AND GIVE AWAY.
THE GOOD PHOTOS FOLLOW; Thank you all that have participated in a cleaner beach area and healthier Salt Water Marsh that cleans the raw sewage from the Combined Sewage overflows that are located in Weschester and Pugsley Creek.
Please back up your debris and take it home. Parks Dept. does not have enough trash cans available for the amount of debris left behind. They have a bad habit on relying on the pick-up crew to directly pick up rather than a garbage crew to empty the pails. In the opiniion of my group, this is a terrible practice and is enabaling the public to practice throwing garbage all over. Even people who want to be clean can't without garbage recepticles. We disagree with your method of garbage collecting and ask that you place amny more garbage opails along the waterfront to encourage the use of them by the hindu Population.
2008 Good News and Bad News
Dotti did her annual SPRING survey of the sandy area of the waterfront to evaluate the damage this year.
the Hindus still use the waterfront, the debris seems to have been lessened, but the errosion of the shoreline has buried much of the debris as well.
We will not be able to clean up what was left behind this year due to the sand being deposited over it.
This may be good news!!! At least it looks better!!!
CLICK ON LINKS TO HELP UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON!!
Toronto Hindu Leaders Lobbying for a sacred place to scatter ashes and make offerings.
Kali the terrible some leave the dead animals for this god
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/04/19/2010-04-19_beheaded_man_found_in_india_may_have_been_human_sacrifice_to_kali.html
