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Parents Offer Dreams For Battery Park Playground
As part of a grand revitalization plan for the park, Gehry will donate a design for the one-acre “Battery Playspace,” replacing a long-neglected playground in the southeast corner of the park, across from Peter Minuit Plaza. But Gehry is not being left entirely to his own devices. “We don’t just want an architect going off on his own,” said Warrie Price, president of the Battery Conservancy, the organization that is largely responsible for revitalizing the Battery. “This is really a collaborative effort, where the community will have a lot of input.” Last month the Conservancy convened the first meeting of the Family Advisory Group, an informal collection of local playground experts, i.e. parents. The group will meet throughout the design process, and the Conservancy will convey the group’s ideas to Gehry. (Parents interested in getting involved in the planning should e-mail Emily Cole-Kelly at ecolekelly@thebattery.org.) Landscape architect Laura Starr, who is advising Gehry on the playground, showed the group a color-coded topographical map showing where it would be best to build high—to hide unsightly views, like the bus turnaround at Peter Minuit Plaza—and where low—to protect the 13 existing trees, including the “sacred” American Elm near the center. And then she opened the floor to a flood of ideas, which ranged from the strictly practical to something out of Willy Wonka. “My kids love playing with water,” said Battery Park City parent Craig Hall. “And the water’s got to move. They’ll float anything in there. They’ll take their shoes off and float them.” All around the table, heads bobbed in agreement. “What about a balloon-filling station?” asked another parent. “There’s a playground in Paris that has a little cement creek running through it, and it’s an absolute magnet,” said Mark Shulman. Nearly everyone also spoke up in support of high-climbing equipment. “I guess somebody decided that only this high is safe for kids,” said Diane Miller, gesturing about five feet off the ground, “but my son climbs 25-foot rock climbing walls.” Other proposals included swings and devices for kids to hang from, electricity-generating windmills and treadmills, giant Lego furniture and artificial mountains with nooks. Some of the ideas were more geared toward adults than kids. Nearly all of the parents said they wanted a vantage point from which they could see the whole site, and only one way in and out. The playground fantasies continued for nearly an hour. Near the end, Olivia Goodkind, age 11, produced the only visual aid: a photo of the Statue of Liberty that she had altered on a computer. The complex folds of Lady Liberty’s robes had been converted to an elaborate slide.
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