Crews are apparently wrapping up the renovations at the Tompkins Square Park Avenue B children’s playgrounds.
The work started last Oct. 1 on the southeast portion of the Park, which saw the closure of the entrances on Seventh Street at Avenue B and Eighth Street at Avenue B.
Here's a look at the revamped playground area from Monday...
A worker told EVG correspondent Steven yesterday that the heavy-duty construction fences should be taken down in about a week — following an inspection of the new playground equipment. The Parks Department website lists this project at 94 percent complete, with a September 2019 reopening date.
The upgrades have included the reconstruction of two playgrounds with new safety surfacing, spray showers, seating and fencing. A schematic from the Parks website offers more detail...
The Parks Department is supplementing the project's funding with its Parks Without Borders initiative that will lower the fences from its present height of 7 feet to 4 feet, a move that stirred plenty of concern in early 2017.
Parks officials believe the shorter fences make the play areas safer — "lowering barriers that block sight lines discourages negative behavior while at the same time making the green space more open and aesthetically pleasing," as DNAinfo reported at the time.
Speaking of shorter fences, Steven took these photos on Wednesday...
This renovation project had been in the making three-plus years at the start of the construction.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Your chance to brainstorm ideas to renovate the Tompkins Square Park Playground (27 comments)
Reminders: Meeting on possible improvements to the Tompkins Square Park Playground
Join Rosie Mendez to discuss improvements to the Tompkins Square playgrounds tomorrow night
Community meeting set to discuss lowering the playground fences in Tompkins Square Park (28 comments)
Report: There's opposition to lowering the playground fences in Tompkins Square Park
Playground renovations underway in Tompkins Square Park
17 comments:
It took a year to finish a kids playground and close off access routes to the park? How long will the construction take on East River Park. The Parks Department and their contractors are a joke. Incompetent or worse. Another example of making the citizens pay or you can't play.
I agree. And why we should be skeptics. The East River Park could be closed, based on this smaller time line, for some 10 years!
Closing it in parts, as proposed by Carlina Riviera, now really makes sense. Or close the FDR instead and fill it in with landfill and a beam! Which makes even better sense!
I’ve seen entire buildings go up since they started this project! And there’s been no need to close those routes. Should have done the half fence like they did on the 7th Street side but it has long been time to reopen the paths as there hasn’t been anything bon them for a while now.
@10:53Am Exactly. How long will it take to destroy East River Park? Not long. How long will it take to rebuild it? Forever. The last time around, when they did the rebuild in sections, every time I was in the parts of the park that were still open, I rarely saw any major construction going on in the parts that were closed. It only happened sporadically, with brief spurts of activity followed by weeks of nothing happening. It was as if the contractor had other, more important jobs to do.
Back then you could still get inside of the old bandshell, which was inside a graffiti covered dilapidated building, which EV Grieve documented here. It always reminded me of the outdoor theater for the first scene in The Warriors, when all the gangs of the city meet up to plan their takeover of the city. Now that it has all been rebuilt, the city is tearing it down again. Of course.
A year in the making my father I remember as a kid put up the swing set in two hours and my mother always said he was not handy.
Everyone knows who owns the carting businesses around NY - they stand to make a fortune in carting and disposal - we're talking billions - they aren't going to give up this one.
@11:51am: Do you realize that emergency service vehicles use the FDR Drive all the time? You think that if there's any major emergency that the FDNY, NYPD, and EMT vehicles should all just dawdle along on the local avenues?
If your loved one were in bad accident and the fastest way to get TO them and then get them TO a hospital was the FDR Drive, would you still say it should be filled in? Your comment shows a kind of short-sighted thinking that doesn't take every-day reality into account.
The fencing should have come down awhile ago considering they were really just updating the play areas for kids. Of course it took almost a year. This is NYC after all. Its rather annoying for residents like me who live on C and 7th. I have to traverse through a different part of the park every time, which takes longer getting to and from home.
I also spoke to a buddy of mine who graduated from NYU with a MS in Urban Planning. He estimates the renovation of the east river park could take a decade, if not more, especially given the slow and corrupt hands of management, especially when new leaders enter office. He also said it will be ineffective from a logistical standpoint given how there is a lack of scientific evidence which would support why this is needed. Lastly, he said it would be detrimental on an environmental level (ironic isn't) given how trees would be torn down from their natural habitat, disallowing birds, squirrels and other animals from resting in their natural surroundings. If it continues for ten years or more, can you imagine how much this will cost? Billions. For what and for whom? Many of our city officials have simply failed us in the vein of greed and apathy.
2:19
Tell, your friends thanks. But why these situations keep coming up is... we vote for these politicians. And we keep reelecting them. And when it gets down to it most of them are "poodles" - they take orders. There are very few independent... imaginative... dedicated... honest officials in the city... state and country. We have to move on from ONE PARTY RULE And see where it gets us... it can't be worse than what we have now.
@2:19pm: I don't think there's any question in most people's minds that this whole tear-down-the-East-River-Park thing is ALL about putting $$$ in the pockets of certain people, and NOT at all about doing the right thing (ecologically or for the neighborhood).
They figure in 10 years nobody will remember who got the payoffs, and those who got paid off will be long gone from the scene.
And that's NYC government in a nutshell! Overpaying for under-performance, with shockingly bad judgment and ZERO transparency evident every step of the way. Our tax dollars funneled into bribes and overcharges, while NOBODY involved gives a rat's rear end about the actual people who live nearby & need/deserve to have a park available to them.
"He also said it will be ineffective from a logistical standpoint given how there is a lack of scientific evidence which would support why this is needed."
Tell your friend Trump to go fuck himself.
Anyone who lived through Sandy, or has a brain, understands that some kind of sea wall is needed. The only questions are when and how.
Wait... why did we do this in the first place?
At 6:05 PM, Anonymous said:
Anyone who lived through Sandy, or has a brain, understands that some kind of sea wall is needed. The only questions are when and how.
A sea wall is a nice thought: we need a really hefty sea wall if we're going to try and withstand climate change.
Here's a map showing what parts of our neighborhood are going to be under water in the 2020s, and then in 2100. Good luck.
IN ADDITION---with NYC projects/improvements---is there ever a clause that rewards for early completion?---i watched the east river track renovation work stall (perfect weather) for weeks and weeks at a time (seems as though contracts are awarded and contractors complete when the work FITS THEIR schedule)---FINALLY---how/why would a $1,800,000 renovation be awarded and not include the painting/renovation of the restrooms :(
@Scuba Diva The PBS special has already put into serious doubt whether the Big U seawall can work. As those flood maps clearly show, Manhattan is at risk of major flooding, so is Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey, so we need to flood proof our infrastructure since any sea wall can fail. It’s time for ConEd to figure out how to keep at least some of the power on for water pumps, elevators and emergency lighting during a flood. As for WiFi, I wonder how flood proof those LinkNYC kiosks are?
I feel like I've had to wait so long for this playground to be completed, I should be allowed to use the equipment!
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