I was glad to see parks and recreation get some additional attention in PLANYC2030, and in a subsequent additional announcement by the Parks Department. We are at the end of a third era for this public amenity, or trying to recover from that third era. In the first era there were few public parks, but the public streets, lacking motorized traffic and parked cars, were available for children to play and adults to socialize. In many parts of the city there were private and informal recreation facilities, like private pools, sandlots on vacant lots in the still-developing city, and beach and rowing clubs, the latter taking advantage of the city’s extensive waterfront. In the second era pollution forced people out of the water and traffic and parking pushed them off the street, but Robert Moses built hundreds of small parks. These, however, were too small for the city to afford on-site staff, and thus expensive to maintain. So when money ran short we reached the third era, with the streets and waterways still mostly off limits, small parks often and vandalized or in disrepair, school playgrounds off limits after school and sometimes used for parking during it, and larger parks maintained much better in places where private contributions are available. Will a fourth era now arrive?
We have reached this point before. New York City’s spending on parks, recreation and culture, as a share of its residents’ personal income, matched the national average in 1989, during Mayor Koch’s last election campaign, but has been well below ever since. With so many competing demands, and so much debt, I doubt it will get that high again. Rather than adding parkland and recreation facilities for general use, we have been handing it over to anyone willing to maintain it as their private preserve. New waterfront parks are being developed on the sensible assumption that our taxes, high as they are, will not be available for maintenance. The plans announced recently may very well be scuttled by the next fiscal downturn — or the next pension enhancement.
That said, and given the scarcity of land in the city, I appreciate the plan’s sensible emphasis on getting maximum use of what we already have, through lighting and turf fields among other things.
For most of their childhood, my children played on soccer fields consisting primarily of rocks, broken glass, dog excrement, mud and puddles and, during dry spells, dust that made the children gasp for air when the wind kicked it up, dust that you came home black with. The only tufts of vegetation, generally a foot cubed, seemed to be there only to damage ankles. Then artificial turf fields were installed. I feared the worst — vandalism followed by a lack of funds for maintenance leading to a hazard and a closure. Instead, for some reason the fields have been respected, and for the last couple of years of their youth my kids have something decent to play on. Some have raised issue about the supposed toxicity of these fields. As one familiar with the alternative, I can only say that they had better have solid proof of a greater hazard. Those objecting should take a look at the grass soccer field at the Parade Grounds as ask themselves if it is the preferred alternative.
Lighting can extend playing times to an extent, and is certainly worth doing at major facilities in order to expand the use of that space. It may make it possible to allow two-two hour games on weekday evenings, one from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm and one from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm, rather than just one. In the winter it is too cold to play at night. Thus, even more appealing is the proposed conversion of armories in Kingsbridge Heights and Park Slope to indoor recreation facilities, which could then be used all the time.
The city should consider if there is land available for another indoor facility somewhere in the hospital complex in East Flatbush, where many buildings are closed. Not a typical NYC bespoke design with massive bells as whistles and soft (non-construction) costs accounting for half the total. A pre-fab Butler building, unheated aside from the restrooms (the Mall of America in Minnesota is unheated except by the customers) with no AC, just fans to bring in the night air, with concrete basketball and paddleball/handball courts, and turf for other things. Simple and cheap. Bottom line — if the principle is to get maximum recreational value per square foot of land, a lighted indoor facility is the best you can get.
It should be noted that maximizing the use of scarce public space has broader implications. Does it really make sense to have libraries that are open so few days and hours?
The main recreation proposal in the plan, opening school playgrounds to after school use, would make sense anywhere but New York. Here, it would be prohibitively expensive to assign a staff member to such a small recreational facility. Unmanned, open schoolyards become vulnerable to vandalism and anti-social behavior that upsets the neighbors. The schoolyard nearest our home was opened for a couple of years when my children were little, and the neighborhood kids would play there. Some teens started hanging out after dark and made some noise, neighborhood seniors organized and made more noise, and the schoolyard was shut down. As I recall, there was an attempt to organize people to volunteer to close the playground and lock it off at dark. If schoolyards are going to be opened for recreational use, something like that would have to be organized.
I’m also pleased the plan didn’t make too much of Governor’s Island. My concern is that the island will become a semi-private preserve, given its inaccessibility, whose expense will drain the rest of the parks system and thus hurt the facilities most New Yorkers can actually get to. What are presented in PLAN2030 are modest proposals consistent with the city’s modest means. I only hope that even these proposals will not be too ambitious.
The proposal to create a public plaza in every community is also appealing. Along with the added waterfront parks and walkways developed over the past twenty years, it almost seems like an attempt to recapture some of what had been available during the first era of recreation in New York — the use of the streets and waterways for recreation. Only during block parties do today’s New Yorkers get to experience what that might have been like all the time. Certainly my trip to Italy, one of the few places I’ve ever been, was eye opening in that regard. The many pedestrianized streets and piazzas greatly enhance the quality of life, in large cities and small towns.
It is theoretically possible for the city to re-arrange its street cleaning system to create a limited or no traffic, no parking street in every neighborhood every day. Rather than sweep one side of all streets in a neighborhood on one day each week, a sweeper could sweep both sides of the same street across several neighborhoods. One of every seven side streets could be swept this way. Those streets could be closed to parking and traffic during that entire day, say from 9 am to dark, freeing them for play and socializing. The kids would create the games and provide the equipment. As long as no one did anything foolish like threaten windows by playing hardball, there would be nothing to vandalize but the asphalt.
The outrage that would accompany such a suggestion would probably make the congestion pricing objections seem mild. But if you think about it, in any given neighborhood parking would actually be easier if just one-seventh of the on-street spaces in a neighborhood were off limits each day. Today one-half of the spaces are unavailable two (or four) days per week. The only loss is that one day per week it would be impossible to park on one’s own block. Moreover, since the “play street” would be different each day of the week, no one would be stuck with the burden of recreation (or blessed with the blessing of no traffic) every day.
The value of public parkland and recreation space is far greater in a dense city, where private yards are non-existent or small. A century ago this importance was well understood as a particular benefit to the poor. I just read an article on a study of the world’s poorest people, who live on the equivalent of a dollar a day or less. They have trouble getting enough calories to maintain their strength, yet spend 10 percent of their income on recreation and festivals. The article presents this as an example of a bad choice. I see it as an example of the value people put on celebrations and recreation that make like enjoyable, compared with just staying alive. I hope the city’s park and open space plans, in PLANYC2030 and elsewhere, aren’t buried again.