The Parks Department has also offered a more specific timeline for the pavement reconstruction of the multipurpose courts (seen above) along Avenue A and 10th Street.
That work is expected to start in September ... with an anticipated completion in June 2024... (a city official previously said this work would only take three months...)
We covered the city's presentation to Community Board 3's Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency Committee back in September. Find that recap, which includes schematics, here.
The Parks Department will reconstruct the multipurpose courts, adding various amenities, including a two-lane seal-coated walking loop, and new asphalt.
According to Max Goodstein, a landscape architect with the Parks Department, there's a lot of "asphalt structural damage," and it "needs to be replaced and repaired. And the only way to do that is to take all the asphalt down to the sub base and put new asphalt down."
Other additions: new benches, a kickball court, a high-low fountain that kids and adults can use simultaneously, and three new basketball backstops at the eastern end, replacing the ones that always seem to be damaged.
So what does this mean for the skaters on the lot (aka TF), hallowed ground where generations have used this space dating to the 1980s? (It has been called "the last great meet-up spot for skateboarders and their friends in New York.")
Skaters are worried the new asphalt will be either too soft or hard for skating, turning this into a useless spot.
As you may recall, in September 2019, the skateboarding community came together via a petition started by Adam Zhu and signed by 33,000-plus people to show their support for keeping the multipurpose courts free of synthetic turf... plans apparently only known to residents who attended a Community Board 3 committee meeting in May 2019.
However, less than 24 hours before a much-publicized rally was to take place, the city announced that it would no longer cover the space in turf, originally proposed to make up for the amenities lost during the years-long gutting of East River Park.
"Tompkins Square Park has served as the epicenter of NYC skateboard culture for decades. As such, we have decided to leave the area previously proposed for synthetic in the park as is and will not move forward with creating a synthetic turf area there," Parks Department spokesperson Crystal Howard said in a statement to Patch at the time.
And as we've noted previously, the reconstructed layout of the space may make this the end of the epicenter of NYC skateboard culture.
Previously on EV Grieve:
