After 11 Years, Baisley Park Houses Community Center Will Reopen

SOUTH JAMAICA, QUEENS — As southeast Queens grapples with a recent spate of gun violence that left one teen dead and another injured, Mayor Bill de Blasio is expanding access to local community centers to give kids more places to go and activities to do when they're not in school.

The Baisley Park Houses Community Center will reopen in January, more than a decade after a funding shortage forced it to close its doors, de Blasio announced during a town hall Wednesday night in South Jamaica.

It will be renamed for Aamir Griffin, the 14-year-old boy shot and killed on a basketball court at the Baisley Park Houses last month. The case remains unsolved.

The city will also extend the hours at the police athletic league community center on Guy R Brewer Boulevard, which is open from 2:30 to 6 p.m. on weekdays and closed on weekends.

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Starting in January, it will be open until 9 p.m. during the week and until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.

"Policing is one part of the answer, but serving our young people better and giving our young people more positive options, giving them places to be and things to do that help them to be safe, is another crucial part of the answer," de Blasio said during the town hall Wednesday. "Policing alone can't do it."

Southeast Queens residents have long pushed for such changes. A 2012 petition calling on NYCHA to reopen the Baisley Park Houses Community Center collected more than 500 signatures.

The center closed in 2008 because of a NYCHA funding shortage, the Queens Courier reported at the time. Some parents then moved their children to programs at the police athletic league's community center.

There are an estimated 1,000 residents living at the Baisley Park Houses, which has 386 apartments across five buildings, according to NYCHA.

"Our children have gone too long without a recreational facility to help keep them engaged," City Council Member Adrienne Adams said in a statement.

"The extended hours at PAL and reopening of the Baisley Park Houses Community Center will be life changing for the children of this community," she added. "I am so grateful to Mayor Bill de Blasio for listening to our pleas and making this a reality."

City Hall did not respond to a request for comment on how much it would cost to maintain the two centers.