Kids Are Stuck Without Playgrounds In These Neighborhoods: Report

NEW YORK — Kids in many New York City neighborhoods face a paucity of playgrounds — and the few they do have could be dangerous, a new report says.

While more than 2,000 publicly run playgrounds are scattered throughout the city, City Comptroller Scott Stringer's office identified 15 community districts with fewer than seven for every 10,000 kids. And 10 of those districts had more young children in 2017 than they did in 2010, the office says.

The city is also struggling to maintain its playgrounds, as more than 500 overseen by the Parks Department posed some risk of injury to people using them, the report released Saturday says.

"(O)ur findings reveal stark disparities in access to these critical public spaces in New York City," Stringer, a Democrat, said in a statement. "That’s why our City needs to overhaul the planning, construction, and maintenance of our playground system."

The city is home to 2,067 playgrounds, about half of which are run by the Parks Department, the report says. That number amounts to just 2.4 playgrounds per 10,000 residents, placing the Big Apple 48th among the 100 biggest U.S. cities in terms of playgrounds per capita, according to the report.

Kids in Brooklyn have the toughest time finding a place to play — the borough has just eight playgrounds for every 10,000 children younger than 10 years old, the comptroller's office found. That's almost half as many as Manhattan, which has 15 per 10,000 children.

Kings County also has nine of the 15 community districts with the fewest playgrounds per capita, including the worst in the city, the comptroller's office says. Community District 12, encompassing Kensington, Borough Park and Ocean Parkway, has just 2 playgrounds per 10,000 children despite being home to nearly 30,000 kids younger than 10 in 2017, the report found.

There's a fair chance the playgrounds those neighborhoods do have are dangerous, according to the comptroller's office.

The latest round of Parks Department inspections in 2018 found "unacceptable" conditions in 24% of Brooklyn playgrounds, nearly triple the rate of 9% in Staten Island, the report shows. More than a quarter of playgrounds were unacceptable in 12 community districts citywide — six of which were in Brooklyn, the comptroller's office said.

In all, 521 — or more than half — of the Parks Department's playgrounds had at least one "hazardous feature" that needed "immediate attention," the report says. Among them were more than 800 hazards that posed a risk of "slight to moderate injury" and 29 that created a chance for a "life-threatening or debilitating injury," according to the comptroller's office.

Stringer called on the city to increase the Parks Department's budget for playground maintenance and operations to address those dangers. He also wants the city to build 100 playgrounds in the next five years on little-used city streets, similar to one that currently sits on St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights.

The Parks Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Stringer's report.