It seems that the renovated Tompkins Square Park playground on Seventh Street and Avenue B is not made from parts that can withstand a week's worth of East Village kid play.
An East Village parent shared the following photos...
Here's the parent via an email:
One of the tethered swing-seats has already come undone and is swinging freely and dangerously due to a bent bracket and missing locknut. When some kids were playing with the broken unit [Sunday] evening, it nearly clocked my son in the head.
So the parent alerted an NYPD officer who was in the Park. The officer provided the parent with "crime scene" tape to secure the loose seat. The officer also promised to report it to the Parks Department.
Another parent noted a plastic piece that belongs to the playground equipment lying around... with a missing screw...
The equipment is made by a Swedish company call Hags... the contractor who did the work is based in Paramus, N.J.
The playground reopened in the evening on Oct. 4 after a year-long renovation.
The upgrades included the reconstruction of two playgrounds with new safety surfacing, spray showers, seating and fencing. According to the Parks Department website, funding for the reconstruction cost $2.57 million.
Back to the first parent:
This broken gear on a brand new NYC playground is striking fear [the reader recalled this accident] and not a small amount of anger from some parents. And if the $2.5 mil number is accurate, then it really is a crime scene. It's absurd that things would be falling apart after little more than a week.
The parent followed up with this: "Everyone is ecstatic that there are new playgrounds for our kids — we’re just a little dismayed at how things could come apart so quickly."
Updated 8 p.m.
Parent Choresh Wald shared these photos... noting the cheap epoxy that will crack soon ...
... and a sign of rust on the stainless steel even before the arrival of cold weather ...
Previously on EV Grieve:
Preliminary thoughts and concerns about the new Tompkins Square Park playground