Meeting Set To Discuss $14M Inwood Park Renovation

INWOOD, NY — City officials have scheduled a public scoping meeting to solicit community feedback on a $14 million plan to renovate an Inwood playground for the first time in more than two decades.

Potential improvements at the Monsignor Kett Playground on West 204th Street between Nagle and Tenth Avenues include high-grade basketball courts, a fitness area, new bathroom facilities and a modified layout to connect the playground to the surrounding streetscape as part of the city Parks Department's parks without borders initiative, according to city officials.

Officials from the city Parks Department will discuss these plans with neighborhood residents at the Dyckman Houses on Tuesday, Jan. 29 from 6:30-8 p.m., according to a department flier circulated by the local community board.

Following the public scoping meeting, parks officials will develop a final design to be shared with Community Board 12. Liz Ritter, chair of the board's parks and cultural affairs committee, encouraged area residents to attend the scoping meetings and make their voices heard.

"The community has been asking for a renovation of this playground for years, and now is our time to share our goals, concerns, and vision for this playground, and what we'd like a newly renovated playground to look like," Ritter wrote in a Community Board email.

Monsignor Kett Playground opened in 1949 to serve families of the nearby Dyckman Houses public housing complex. The facility was originally named the Dyckman Houses Playground before beign dedicated to honor Monsignor Francis J. Kett of nearby Saint Jude’s Roman Catholic Church.

The playground was last renovated in 1995 when the city improved two full-size basketball courts in a project that cost $343,000, according to the Parks Department.

Photos courtesy NYC Parks Department