New Bathrooms Coming to Parade Grounds

When you gotta go, you gotta go. But now visitors to the Parade Grounds will have to go a little less far when nature calls. 

Beginning next month, the Prospect Park Alliance will begin work on another set of bathrooms at the Parade Grounds.

Work on the $675,000 comfort station is slated to be completed in Spring of 2013, said Paul Nelson of the .  

The bathrooms will be located in the central corridor of the Parade Grounds in , near the concession stand. The women's side will have three stalls and the men's will have one stall and two urinals. They will likely have similar hours to other park bathrooms, from about 8 a.m. until dusk, Nelson said.

Although there are already bathrooms near the playground at the eastern edge of the playing fields, more are needed.

"The Parade Ground athletic fields are heavily used in the spring through fall seasons and there are not currently enough bathroom facilities to serve the large number of athletes and users," Nelson said via e-mail.

When told about the new bathrooms, one park-goer said he wasn’t sure the project was the best use of funds. “We already have some over there,” he said, gesturing toward the playground. “There are plenty of other things I would spend the money on,” said the 28-year-old artist, who would only give his name as Matt.

But everyone else interviewed said the new bathrooms were badly needed.

“A lot of people come to the park and they’re always asking for the bathroom. The ones we have are not enough, especially on the weekends,” said Rolando Rivera, a 44-year-old construction worker who lives on Cortelyou Road.

“It’s terrific,” agreed Kerry McDonald, a cosmetologist who was in the park with her 1-year-old son. “There are a lot of kids and sports activities going on, so we definitively need it.”

The bathrooms will be paid for using city and state funding: State Assemblyman Jim Brennan and Assemblywomen Rhoda Jacobs, and Joan Millman, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York all contributed funding, Nelson said.

Editor's Note: March 28, 2012, Prospect Park Alliance spokesman Paul Nelson updated the cost of the bathrooms today to $675,000, which, he said, "includes the planning, design, supervision, independent testing and contingencies."