A $40 million fund-raising campaign to improve the Central park playgrounds was announced last week by the Central Park Conservancy, which is the nonprofit group that manages the park. Thousands of children who play in the park will surely benefit from this initiative.
Although money shouldn’t be a problem since the conservancy has some of the wealthiest patrons in the city, there is a burning question as to the fate of the countless city parks that don’t benefit from private fund-raising. Parks that don’t benefit from private fund-raising include the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, in Queens that is now marred by broken drainage, graffiti as well as pervasive litter, and the St. Mary’s Park that is located in the Mott Haven section of South Bronx, in this park, the baseball bleachers have no seats, and the cracked tennis court has no net.
New York is densely populated and expensive. This means that parks are not considered as a luxury or an amenity. They are instead looked on as backyards, and a place to get some oxygen. The private support that the parks receive is seen as meaningful and laudable, however, the fate of the remaining 1,700 parks comes into question. The Central Park and Prospect Park are both well maintained to the extent that they are seen as jewels to the system. Like the rest of the parks, they receive a minimal budget from the city, however, a large chunk of the money used to maintain them comes from very big donors, star-studded galas as well as high profile marketing campaigns.
Areas without the private resources to maintain their parks have the most “not acceptable” rated parks in their vicinity. The irony is that these areas need the open space provided by these parks the most. This brings up the question of how the playing field can be leveled in a bid to ensure that every neighborhood gets the parks that it so desperately needs. The Answer? More financing for parks in the annual city and state budgets.
According to Daniel L. Squadron, a democratic state senator who represents parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, the budget can then be supplemented by an ambitious new program. The new program would be the creation of a Neighborhood Parks Alliance which would in turn form partnerships between a well-financed conservancy or a contributing park and a member park(s) that was in need of more money and support.
According to Daniel, a contributing park would commit 20 percent of its conservancy’s budget to member parks with which it partnered. Signatures gathered from local residents would constitute the way in which a park became a member park. The park would be able to establish its own conservancy group and receive a city commitment from the local council members and the Parks Department in order to maintain current government financing levels. The Contributing park conservancies would also provide continuing expertise, oversight and programmatic support in addition to money.
He cites as an example that the Central Park Conservancy has an annual budget for park expenses of nearly $40 million. $8 million, which is twenty percent of the budget, would go a long way for a number of smaller parks.
Daniel acknowledges that it is not a comprehensive solution to the problem of open-space equity, however it would mean that more parks could meet their community needs.
He states that, “A Neighborhood Parks Alliance is one simple way for more New Yorkers to have decent open space, so that more families in more communities can make a life in the city.”
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