Site Highlights

Photos are now online of the beautiful and well attended groundbreaking ceremony the NYC Dept. of Parks put on for the new playground at 116th Street.

Thanks to a grant from Partnerships for Parks and additional funding from Barnard College, we've completely redesigned our brochure for the park which highlights the work of our organization and how you can support us and get involved. Download the new brochure now and let us know if you'd like additional copies to distribute to others.

Anyone familiar with the existing playground in the park just north of 116^th Street knows that it has been in poor and deteriorating condition for many years. It is also cut off from inside of the park. With its single entry from about 118^th and Manhattan Ave., it hardly seems part of the park at all, more like an imposition into it. The demolition of the existing playground and its replacement with new playground more integrated into the park has been a priority project for our organization for over six years. Funds have been secured from the City Council thanks to our outgoing Council Member Bill Perkins and our current Council Member Inez Dickens for a $2M renovation of this area of the park. The new Parks Dept. design is built into the natural slope of the land and has access from both within the park and along the Avenue. Plans have been finalized, received the necessary approvals and a contract has been awarded! Renderings of the design are now available on our site courtesy of the Dept. of Parks and Recreation. We are excited about this new amenity which in its use of materials and layout blends in with the historic fabric of the park. Update: Sept. 12, 2007. Construction fencing has gone up and some demolition work has begun. The construction is scheduled to take 9 months to complete.