From the Daily News:Despite a much-hyped city program to keep school playgrounds open on evenings and weekends, thousands of kids are still locked out.
A Daily News review of 113 school lots that should be unlocked as part of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC found a quarter of the playgrounds were either completely shuttered or partly closed.
On two recent Saturdays, 17 of the 113 schoolyards were locked, and another 11 lots had either inaccessible blacktop areas or playground equipment, forcing an untold number of recreation-starved children to trek elsewhere for places to play.
Not a single borough was immune to the lapse.
In recent months, the city's budget crisis and problems with site conditions prompted officials to abandon plans to transform 34 of the schoolyards.
5 comments:
i have been exposing the locking of the P.S.159 playground 24/7 since June 2009. after planting 19 trees twice (14 died),the $2-3 million playground to park was completed by plan 2030 in August. it remained locked ,except to park teachers cars.
after my quest was denied by letters to the local weeklies to expose this, i alerted C.M.Dan Halloran,Republican,Bayside.
he contacted the Queens Parks Dept and Principal of P.S.159. the playground is now opened M-F,4:00 pm until dusk and on weekends and holidays 8:00am until dusk.
the community teens now are utilizing the five half-courts(glass backboards) basketball space.
poor planning denies them a full-court. two trees and two of the twenty benches are obstructing.
opened 3/12/2010.
the other trees destroyed the soft-ball field.
the school still locks the toddler jungle gym. bummer......
persistence is a must when dealing with bureaucrats.
Playgrounds to Parks is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
Hell consider yourself lucky. In Astoria playgrounds are used for development (Variety Club) or library (Ravenswood)
PS 91 is locked up often. Brand new equipment installed almost a year ago, but i never see it being used.
Hell, they put up two basketball courts, with backboards, but NO RIMS!
I don't blame the schools for protecting them. If they get destroyed the city is not gonna give them more money to fix them.
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