HELL’S KITCHEN
ncorporating the DEP’s stormwater strategy is just the latest evolution of a long and productive partnership between the city and The Trust for Public Land. By the end of 2016, the program will have transformed 200
barren asphalt schoolyards into dream playgrounds, adding more than 150 acres of recreational space. Nearly 3.5 million New Yorkers now live within a 10-minute walk of one of these renovated sites. New schools sign on to the curriculum every year, with
each completed playground inspiring the next class of student designers. At the outset of their design work, the sixth graders at J.H.S. 189 took a field trip to the renovated playground at P.S. 33, a Queens elementary school. J.H.S. 189’s Jamie Zucker recalls the moment her visiting class arrived. Some kids rushed on to the field and rolled around on the turf, “like pup- pies.” Some gravitated to the web-climbing nets, while others beelined for badminton rackets or the basketball court. One group clustered around the outdoor tables with books and b
p board games. “Y board games. You really saw their personalities,” she sa she says.
Fellow teacher Michelle Sedlmaier teaches third grade at P.S. 33
3 . She’s had some time to observe the impact of the redesign on life at the school. “I think the kids are very proud of the schoolyard,” she says. “We don’t just use it at recess—it gives them extra space for learning: the gym teacher uses it for physical education, teachers bring kids out for gardening proj- ects. We even have a lunchtime walking club. It’s a great thing because the girls will talk to me walking around the track more than they would talk to me in the classroom.” There’s a world of new possibilities on the playground— among them, the hope that this won’t be the last place its young designers pitch an idea, negotiate a deal, or watch a product of their imaginations built and realized. Wherever the students’ lives take them, The Trust for Public Land’s first ob- jective is assured: their memories of the schoolyard will be of j more than an asphalt lot. When they return to the space—in person or in mind’s eye—they’ll be able to say: Here is where I walked with my teacher, where I scored a basket, where I p
planted a tree. This was my playground—and I made it m yground and I made it myself.
38 · LAND&PEOPLE · SPRING/SUMMER 2016
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