Upper East Side Needs More Playgrounds, Comptroller Says

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The Upper East Side is the only neighborhood in Manhattan that is lacking an adequate number of playgrounds, according to a report released Monday by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Stringer's office identified 15 community districts with fewer than seven for every 10,000 kids. Manhattan Community District 8, which spans the entire Upper East Side and a small portion of East Harlem, is the only district in the borough to make the list with 4.3 parks for every 10,000 kids in the district.

While the Upper East Side fared worse than the rest of Manhattan, its numbers are better than the city as a whole. 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.

The Upper East Side was also just one of five districts on Stringer's list where the number of children in the district has not increased since 2010. With 18,628 children in 2017 compared to 19,109 in 2010 the district saw a 3% decrease in the number of kids living in the district.

Stringer recommended the city build 100 new playgrounds in the next five years by utilizing a "new and innovating" playground model the comptroller is calling "Pavement to Playgrounds." The program would repurpose space on little-used city streets by turning a portion of the block into a playground and utilizing the remaining space as a cul-de-sac for parking. The design is similar to one already implemented on St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights.

The comptroller also recommended creating more playgrounds through the city's "Schoolyards to Playgrounds" program. The program launched a decade ago with the goal to convert 290 schoolyards into play spaces that are open to the public after school hours in three years, but still has not met that goal, Stringer said.

"(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."

Patch editor Noah Manskar contributed to this report