Thursday, June 24, 2021

A petition to fund Public Land schoolyards for community use

There's a petition in circulation now titled "Fund the Trust for Public Lands Schoolyards" and addressed to Mayor DeBlasio, City Council and NYC Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter.

The petition asks the following: 
We write to you today, as parents, PTA members, and community members ... to urge you to adopt the City Council's recommendation of including funding (approximately $1.8M) to open 23 Trust for Public Land schoolyards to the public during after-school hours, on weekends and on holidays. This investment will open schoolyards across the city ... to the surrounding community, providing vitally needed open space.
Closer to home, several local playgrounds have been closed to the public since early 2020, including behind P.S. 19 on First Avenue between 11th Street and 12th Street (pictured above). This playground, featuring a synthetic turf field and painted track, debuted in June 2018 ... and was open to the community after school and on weekends and holidays — just not when in use by P.S. 19 or any of their after-school programs.

Since 1996, the Trust for Public Land has helped revamp playgrounds at New York City public schools through a public-private partnership. Aside from P.S. 19, they've worked on playgrounds in the East Village at P.S. 15 The Roberto Clemente School and the Children’s Workshop School/East Village Community School.

Find the petition here.

H/T Choresh Wald!

Previously on EV Grieve:
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3 comments:

  1. Choresh WaldJune 24, 2021 at 7:16 AM

    Really hoping not to have another wasted summer. July and August of 2019 were perfect: the school custodians used to open the gates at 6am and leave it open till 11pm. It was in usage all day, every day by all members of the community: the elders from Sirovich Center with the skateboarders with the toddlers playing in the playground with the NYU newcomers playing and basking in the sun. Saturday morning there was a soccer class for little ones, weekdays afternoons free tennis classes. And so many birthday parties. And because it is not following the city parks rules you can mix everybody together (dogs included). When people walked in there was a sense of disbelief that they are able to enjoy this public amenity (PS19 playground is huge). The failures of DeBlasio administration are too many to be counted: this one is a daily reminder.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 24, 2021 at 8:43 PM

    We need a park during covid and the city has let us down once again! Please share this with your friends and neighbors.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJune 25, 2021 at 8:56 AM

    Using schoolyards as parks is a bad idea. Just go look at any NYC Park.....overflowing garbage, rats, drug use, gang altercations, tobacco. Schoolyards should be for schools....with proper monitoring to keep the children safe. How about NYC Parks and NYPD start policing our Parks more frequently to keep them safe for law abiding residents. Then, when they can show they can do the job properly we can begin to have a conversation about schoolyards.

    ReplyDelete

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