Thanks to Nelly Issacson, a member of the Park Slope Civic Council and a longtime neighborhood activist, I went (on the late side) to the ribbon cutting ceremony over at the new Park Slope Armory/Recreation center, on 8th Avenue and 14th Street.

Borough President Marty Markowitz, Coucilmember Bill De Blasio, and Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Robert C. Lieber gave speeches. De Blasio even paid a few rounds of hoops with the Commisioner of City Department of Homeless Services.

I spoke to Marty as he was leaving. Since I was a "speech guest" at the State of the Borough I shouted out:

"Hey give a quote to Only the Blog…"

"It’s all about family time and quality time. And fitness," Marty said. He told me that back when he was an assemblyman, he went with a group of neighborhood activist to an armory on 168th Street in Manhattan (Ft. Washington) that had a fitness center and  a homeless shelter.

"That was the model for this," he told me.

Indeed that armory in Upper Manhattan is proof that the combination of recreation center/ homeless shelter works very well in a large armory space like this one.

It’s been a long time coming. Sometimes it seemed like a pipe dream to South Slope residents. Maybe 15 years in the making. Neighborhood residents like Issacson can attest to that.

"It took centuries for this to happen," she told me.

City Councilmember Bill De Blasio deserves a lot of credit for pushing it through in the last few years. He told a reporter at the event:

"The hard part was getting the $16 million and fixing this place over the last three years. Now it’s the easy part: figuring out how it should be used. The YMCA was the perfect choice. They know how to do it. The city needs to approve that choice but by spring school groups, people in the community should be using this space. We’ve got an Olympic-sized track (1/8 of a mile). Part of the day there will be schools in here. Weekends we’ll have youth basketball and other sports leagues. Nights and weekends are for the community. We will charge a modest membership fee. But this area needs this."

I asked De Blasio who would have priority when it comes to usage. Clearly, it’s going to be an interesting balancing act.

For starters, the schools will get priority time in the space.

"District 15 and District 20 certainly need this. There’s not enough gym space. Especially in the old school buildings like PS 107 and PS 39, which is 125 years old. There’s no gym."

I spoke with representatives of CAMBA (Church Avenue Merchants Block Association) who run the homeless shelter in the armory. They added  that the 70 residents of the homeless shelter would also be scheduled into the mix.

Joan McFeely, who works with CAMBA said that after years of meetings it is very gratifying to see the armory finally fixed up and ready to be utilized in this way.