Dozens of neglected NYC playgrounds ‘will be revamped’ – Mayor

The Mayor of New York City has set out an extensive plan for revamping dozens of long-neglected closed and dilapitated playgrounds.

Bill Blasio said that many planned repairs and new projects had been delayed because of spending curbs imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that now was the time to begin to make some big changes.

It followed concerns raised by local media that almost 100 playgrounds controlled by the city’s housing authority were ‘off limits’ to children because they were unsafe.

And although the freeze on spending has since been lifted, few of these these play area projects have been given completion deadlines, which means that thousands of children across the city face another sweltering New York summer of struggling to find any public playgrounds.

A daily news briefing heard from The City publication that more than one in 10 of the city’s public play areas were currently closed, and it was also suggested that – after showing some photos to an expert – that some were so badly dated that they might best be closed permanently.

“The bottom line is that we’ve got to do better and NYCHA’s got to do better,” replied Blasio.

“We all understand that during the year-plus of COVID a lot got put on hold. We understand that, there was a lot of work that would have happened otherwise that really would have helped that had to wait because we had to freeze a huge number of projects.

“But the bottom line is, we need these playgrounds fixed. We’ve made a huge amount of investments through our parks department in communities that didn’t get their fair share,” he added.

Mayor Blasio went on to say that a ‘systematic effort’ was needed to make the playgrounds good again.

“I want to make sure in our time here in these next months that we nail down a plan to address this issue once and for all,” he concluded.