Daily News from New York, New York • 542

r-i MANHATTAN AND BRONX iVeii-s, Sunday, June 17, 1979 fl By MARTIN KING UILDER HARRY HELMSLEY, IB" landlord of The Tudor City complex, is considered anything but' When he isn't trying to ram the puck into the net, Erik Lief, 17, is leading the campaign to block builder Harry Helmsley's plan to erect a 52-story skyscraper on the city playground at 42d St. and First Ave. Lief and his pals sought the support of City Planning Commissioner Robert F. Wagner Jr. and they were shocked to learn the plan was Wagner's idea.

wwfl lilliill "t- all these kids, who have been scattered so far and wide, have to make their own extended community. That's what happens at the UN playground." John Caulfield, the association's secretary, said "There is no justification for trading a heavily used recreational park for a private insular sitting area." Feel involved The New York Ranger Fan Club is another group opposed to the playground deal. Especially vocal was the club's past president, Sam Pitkowsky, now one of the directors of the new Rod Gilbert Foundation, a charitable organization devoted to promoting urban athletic programs. Pitkowsky said the UN Playground hockey program "is probably the only program in the city where any kid from anywhere, regardless of age, regardless of ability, can walk in off the street and immediately be given membership, immediately be put on a team." But it isn't only the kids and teenagers who feel personally involved with the park. John Morre works at the Con Ed Waterside plant directly south of the playground and said he and his co-workers use it regularly.

Morre said he comes from a family of 11 that grew up on 47th St. "They tore down the whole block to put up the ugliest office building in the civilized world," he said. "We moved to 55th but they got that block too. We moved to 72d St. for awhile, but the high rents finally forced us out to Queens and now they want this park too.

Can't they leave anything a good skate by the hundreds of roller hockey buffs who practice their sport Sunday mornings at a playground near the United Nations. In exchange for his court-backed right to build a 30 and 28-story apartment tower on the two private parks in the center of Tudor City, Helmsley would swap the parks for a city-owned playground at the southeast corner of 42d St and First Ave. In the swap, the city would assume ownership of the two private parks with the stipulation that Tudor City would maintain them while Helmsley would build a 52-story skyscraper on all or part of the playground. But just as the residents of Tudor City raised a cry when they learned of Helmsley's plan to transform their twin parks into high-rise apartments, so did the roller buffs raise their voices in protest over losing their rink. "You do not save a park by destroying a park," said 17-year-old Erik Lief, president of the Youth Emergency Committee to Save the UN Playground.

So Lief and his pals in the East End Hockey Association went about collect ing some 500 signatures on petitions opposing any attempt to take the park from them. They sallied down to the offices of the City Planning Commission at 2 Lafayette where they hoped to get support from Commission Chairman Robert Wagner Jr. But it seems the park "swap" idea was Wagner in the first place, and all the hockey players got i- TT iP ir.lf A0'- SJ. -from the commission was a promise of a search for another place for them to Get some support They did, however, get support from Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis, who said the swap "would mean the of a heavily used playground, one of the few public recreation areas serving the children and young adults in the neighborhood below 42d St It would be hard to see how we can do away with it" Unfortunately for the hockey crowd, Davis doesn't have, the last word on the issue. Although the UN piaygrouna is a ity park, any move to "demap" it in jsJyt 'f 2 order to make it available for the trade with the Tudor City Parks must first be approved by state legislators.

The issue is further complicated because the whole idea must then be approved by the City Council. Residential pockets Those favoring the swap idea contend that the UN Playground is lightly used, but that argument doesn't wash with Jack Collins, founder and director of the 8-year-old East End Hockey Association. "Office buildings and high-rises have killed Manhattan's old compact neighborhoods, especially on the East Side," Collins said. "Kids don't grow up in communities anymore, they grow up in residential pockets," he said. "So now -list aoc.

i4-'. New plm9o by Pat Youngsters of the East End Hockey Association, here playing a pickup game, collected petitions opposing the threat to their If Helmsley doesn't get the playground, he'll build on the sylvan parks that are one of the attractions of Tudor City, whlchheownS) a -m.