Love Means Nothing
On any given day at Jackie Robinson Park Playground, you might stumble upon an adolescent drumline competing against speakers blasting an a cappella version of SWV’s “Weak” for aural real estate, folks doing tai chi on the handball courts, or little kids learning to play tennis with rackets half their size. You may even run face-first into a rally. That’s what happened on June 1, when community members gathered in the park to vent their frustration with what at first glance seems a routine municipal matter: procurement.
In 2019, neighborhood tennis instructor Frances Ferdinand was the sole bidder for the right to teach at the Malcolm X Boulevard courts, where the nets drooped and grass grew out of the cracks in the concrete. Ferdinand successfully petitioned the city to resurface the hardtop, which was carried out as part of a 2023 park renovation; players who once frequented the courts at Fort Greene or Prospect Park started making their way eastward. After her contract, or concession, expired this year, Ferdinand suddenly faced competition from bidders prepared to outspend her. In the end, the city awarded the five-year lease to another Bed-Stuy instructor for $40,000—nearly four and a half times Ferdinand’s offer.
That didn’t sit well with the elected officials, pastors, parents, and players who had assembled to demand the concession be returned to Ferdinand. “She has done more for this community than most politicians,” said Ralph James, the courts’ de facto attendant.
Ferdinand had hoped her advocacy would be factored into the decision process and appealed, but the city said it was and is compelled to award concessions to the highest bidders. However, Title 12, Chapter 1, of the Rules of the City of New York notes that a department has the discretion to take other considerations into account when “it is in the best interest of the City to require a balancing of revenue to the City, quality, and other factors.” At least in theory, tennis concessions aren’t always about the Benjamins.
It’s not as though they’re lucrative income streams. Even the most expensive tennis concession awarded this cycle (Riverside Park on the Upper West Side and West Harlem, $306,959 split across five years) seems painfully insignificant when compared with the city’s yearly budget of $104 billion or the police’s yearly budget of $5.53 billion. In his speech at the rally, state senator Jabari Brisport said the size of the tennis concessions, in the context of the gargantuan municipal budget, was equivalent to “a rounding error.”
Without a concession, an instructor is practically barred from teaching on public courts. A particularly heated speaker disclosed the home address of Omar Durrani—the man who won the concession over Ferdinand, as well as other concessions at two other tennis courts, and has already managed to alienate locals—imploring those in the crowd “to take [the struggle] to his doorstep.”
The sounds of impassioned orations and not-not-doxing couldn’t drown out the homegoing hymns in my head. I heard them when Louis Dabney, former Bed-Stuy youth and collegiate player, spoke about the good ol’ days practicing at the neighborhood courts. I also heard them when three different speakers invoked the specter of Mario Bonelli, a beloved Bed-Stuy coach who passed away in 2021.
I really saw the dirt hitting the top of the casket when Michael Bailey, a lawyer consulting on the situation, unceremoniously announced that the language the city bakes into the request for bids was ironclad; there was no way for Coach Frances to come out on top. These days, anybody who wants to take lessons from her has to make the trek out to the Linden Park tennis courts in East New York.