New Golf Course for the Bronx Seems Like an Odd Use of NYC's Land and Money

The controversy over the construction of a golf course, to be operated by Trump National and International Golf Clubs no less, on a major portion of Ferry Point Park in the southeastern section of the Bronx is not new. But with its budget swelling and recent news about nefarious links to a contracting company the city is using on the project and elevated levels of methane gas found just outside the golf course's perimeter, the course controversy has roared back to life.  

"[T]hese recent issues," says Ginia Bellafante, "would seem entirely peripheral to the more essential question of whether spending tens of millions of dollars and turning over acres and acres of land to a sport whose hourly caloric expenditure falls short of considerably less expensive forms of exercise - Ultimate Frisbee, for instance, or jogging - is really the maximally efficient use of the city's resources."

"As it happens, the development of the course is causing Ferry Point Park to stand as one of the more egregious symbols of class division in a city already so famously replete with them."