keep the asphalt, scrapping plans to put down synthetic turf. As a result of the skateboarding community organizing, the asphalt in the multi-purpose courts will not be disturbed. Tompkins Square Dog Run The Tompkins Square Dog Run was the first dog run in New York City. It opened in 1990 as part of a large-scale renovation of the dilapidated park. It recently underwent a $450,000 renovation, much of which was funded by the New York City government and fund-raising by dog run patrons. It now includes a surface of crushed stone [sand], three swimming pools, a tree deck, and bath areas and hoses to spray off one's pet. The run hosts the Annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade to raise money to help maintain the run. This is the biggest dog Halloween party in the United States, boasting an annual attendance of more than 400 dogs in costume and 2,000 spectators. Monuments The park contains three monuments. There is a monument in the north side of the park to the General Slocum boating disaster on June 15, 1904. This was the greatest single loss of life in New York City prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Over a thousand people, mainly German immigrant mothers and children, drowned in the East River that day. The area near the park, formerly known as Kleindeutschland, effectively dissolved in grief as shattered German families moved away. This disaster is also memorialized in James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Additionally, the park is also the place where Indian Sadhu A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada came to sing and preach in 1966, beginning the worldwide Hare Krishna movement. An elm tree in the park's southern plaza that he chanted beneath is now considered sacred to the Hare Krishna faith, as noted by a New York City Department of Parks and Recreation plaque. The southeast corner of the park contains a statue of Samuel S. Cox (1824–1889), a New York City politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio and New York, and as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in 1885–1886. The Temperance Fountain located near Avenue A, South of 9th Street Transverse, was erected in 1888, during the temperance movement, to give people free access to clean drinking water so they wouldn't have to drink alcohol for refreshment. This neo-classical fountain was a gift of the wealthy San Francisco dentist, businessman, and temperance crusader