Weeksville Playground in Crown Heights to Receive Full Reconstruction

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A Crown Heights playground has been added to a $285 million city initiative to rebuild and renovate neglected New York City parks.
Weeksville Playground, bounded by Atlantic Avenue, Howard Avenue and Herkimer Street, was one of nine parks selected Monday for inclusion in the Community Parks Initiative, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver announced. As a result, the playground will receive a full-scale redesign and reconstruction.

"All around the city, parks act as meeting spaces that serve a variety of needs in our communities,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. “The Community Parks Initiative targets the most underfunded parks to ensure that they are reinvigorated, and better equipped to offer their local residents a safe, clean and welcoming place to gather and play."

Weeksville Playground last received upgrades when former NYC Mayor Giuliani provided $176,000 for playground renovations in the late 1990s. In 1996 the park received new asphalt and sidewalk pavements, steel fences, and gates; in 1997, new play equipment, surfacing and benches; in 1998 a new flagpole with a yardarm and new trees. Since then, the quality of the park has degraded and soon the community will decide how to rebuild the park.

The Community Parks Initiative was launched in 2014 to improve historically overlooked small parks in growing neighborhoods with greater than average rates of poverty, according to the announcement. The program is funded through the mayor's office. Since selecting 35 sites for inclusion into the initiative in 2014, the program has expanded to include more parks every year, according to the announcement.

The eight other parks to receive inclusion in the Community Parks Initiative are as follows:

Bronx

• Garrison Playground
• Playground 174
• Playground 134
• Plimpton Playground

Brooklyn

• La Guardia Playground
• Weeksville Playground

Manhattan

• Abraham Lincoln Playground
• Audubon Playground

Queens

• Almeda Playground

“For health, for relaxation, and for happiness, great neighborhoods need the great neighborhood spaces the Community Parks Initiative creates,” parks commissioner Mitchell J. Silver said in a statement. “This is why CPI is not only an investment in parks – it’s an investment in the wellbeing of millions of New Yorkers for generations to come.”

Lead image courtesy of NYC Parks