Help Plan Renovation Of St. Catherine's Park

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — St. Catherine's Park, one of the few patches of greens space in the district, is getting a renovation.

And the Parks Department wants to hear from you.

On Thursday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., the City's Parks Department will hold an input meeting to collect ideas from residents and neighbors about how to improve the park as the department enters the design stage.

Ideas presented at the meeting will be used to help develop a plan for renovation, the Parks Department says.

The meeting is virtual and for those who cannot attend, you can submit ideas here until June 22.

According to the NYC Parks website, St. Catherine's Park was last renovated in 1996. The park was built in the 1930's and was reconstructed in 1941 as part of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration relief program, according to livingnewdeal.org.

in 1967, a six-year-old boy was killed when he raced out of one of the park's exits to the street, according to a New York Times article from 1974 about a previous — and disappointing — renovation of the park that many parents said resulted in a dangerous playground.

“With this playground,” neighborhood mother Sabina Primack said to the New York Times, “you don't have to diet, you expend so much energy chasing your children around.”

To register for Thursday's meeting, click here.