By Helen Klein
A Viking ship that children can climb on will be the centerpiece of the newly renovated playground in Leif Ericson Park. Plans for reconstructing the playground, which is located, at 67th Street and Eighth Avenue, were approved by Community Board 10, gathered at St. Anselm’s Meletia Hall, Fourth Avenue and 83rd Street, for its January meeting. The plans also included the reconstruction of the park’s basketball courts. The nearly $2-million renovation is being funded through allocations appropriated by City Councilmembers Vincent Gentile and Sara Gonzalez. Gentile appropriated $1.85 million for the project; the allocation from Gonzalez was $145,000. The now dilapidated playground had originally been constructed in 1995 with funds donated by Saturn, and had been maintained through the efforts of the city’s Department of Parks & Recreation and the volunteer members of the McKinley-Leif Ericson Park Alliance. Among the features to be included in the new playground are, “New swings, safety surfacing, play equipment, steel fencing benches, picnic tables, volleyball court with synthetic turf, painted games and plantings,” explained Eleanor Petty, chairperson of the board’s Parks Committee. Petty noted that the “Viking theme” featured by the playground will be an extension of the theme that characterizes the area of the park bordered by Fort Hamilton Parkway, Eighth Avenue, 66th Street and 67th Street. In response to complaints from residents on the 67th Street side of the park “about late-night basketball games which involved gambling,” the basketball courts, said Petty, “Were moved to the 66th Street side of the park where there are no residences. Also,” she said, “All flood lighting will be replaced with regular park lights” and “an interior grassway will be continued inside of the new five-foot iron fence to provide a sound buffer.” While a comfort station is not included in the plans, because of cost, “The piping necessary for a future comfort station is included in this project,” Petty reported. “That was a great coup, to get that,” she told the board members. A comfort station, she said, would cost $1 million. There will be no park attendant stationed at the park, said Petty in answer to a question from board member Doris Cruz. No parks, said Petty, are assigned attendants by the city’s Department of Parks & Recreation unless there is a comfort station there. “I find it very disturbing,” noted Cruz, “that they are doing a great design without having attendants.” Cruz also asked what the time frame was for adding a comfort station. “We’ve waited 10 years for this park,” stressed Petty. “It took us all these years to get where we are.” Fran Vella-Marrone, a board member and the president of the Dyker Heights Civic Association, concurred. Noting that both she and Petty were founding members of the McKinley-Leif Ericson Park Alliance, she recalled, “We lobbied for years and years just to get what we are getting now. The park hadn’t gotten anything for about 50 years till we started lobbying, then they started putting in new facilities there. We asked for the comfort station about 10 years ago. Having got the underpinning is the first step. What the time frame is, who knows.”
