jjbyrne-0710.jpgWhen the renderings for the new-and-improved playground at J.J. Byrne Park were released last November, the Parks Department announced that ground was supposed to be broken in the Fall of 2010. Well, it looks like they may get a small jump start: According to an email from the Executive Director of the Old Stone House, which is located in the park, work on the playground is scheduled to begin on August 27 and to last through the Spring of 2012; the Old Stone House itself will remain open and the field and recreation spaces should still be accessible. Plans include adding a picnic grove, concessions and tables, and revamping the play spaces. For a rendering of the plans, click here. In all, the city will spend $3 million on the build-out.


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. I go further back by a decade or more. Handball courts were parallel to Fifth Avenue, so the cops couldn’t see into the playground (and you know they weren’t getting out of their cars). People would dump stuff on the Fourth Street cul de sac; other folks would set it on fire; the Fire Department just stopped coming. “It’s a sofa? It’ll burn itself out.” Fairly open drug dealing on Fifth Avenue; the ‘chop shop’ on Third Street eventually got busted. Teenagers played basketball and handball, but you never saw families in the park. Life in New York City, post-economic collapse. I moved there from upstate and got street-smart in a hurry.

  2. quote:
    Wouldn’t building a playground or doing renovations to one of the other very sad parks be a better plan?

    no. parks in bad neighborhoods just wind up getting trashed so it’s a waste of tax payers money to renovate them.

    *rob*