City to Modernize 10 New Parks: Increasing the 67 Citywide Parks that have been Improved

By Yehudit Garmaise

     Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this morning that the city will be dipping into the $425 million that is prioritized for his Community Parks Initiative (CPI) to improve, modernize, and reimagine citywide: 10 new parks: adding to the 67 parks that the city has enhanced since he first came into office in 2014.

     CPI representatives, which have chosen 10 new parks to recreate, “will be reaching out to New Yorkers in each targeted community to learn what they want to see in their brand-new parks,” said Gabrielle Fialkoff, the parks commissioner.

     The 10 new parks, which are in all five boroughs, are the first of 100 more that will be modernized over the next 10 years: bringing the total number of renovated parks to 167.

     In Brooklyn, two parks will be among the 10 to be redone: Marc and Jason’s Playground, which is at 329 Sterling St, and has been closed, and Jerome Playground, which is at Wortman Ave. between Jerome St. and Warwick St, the mayor's office told BoroPark24.

     Some of the parks that are receiving the funding have not been touched in more than two decades, said Fialkoff, who added that CPI chooses parks that have “been overlooked by previous administrations.”

     “During the pandemic, we all learned that our parks are not a luxury, but a necessity,” said Fialkoff. 

     In 2014, Mayor de Blasio created CPI “to invest in parks that did not get their fair share over the years,” explained the mayor, who wanted to ensure that the city’s community parks, in all five boroughs, receive as much “attention, love, and investment” as the most well-known parks in the city.

     “We love our big, famous, bold-name parks that have lots of support from the surrounding community and from the philanthropic world, and that is great for all New Yorkers, but what about our community parks?” the mayor asked. “Many, many people depend on those parks.

      In addition to providing the funds to update and revamp city parks Fialkoff added that the CPI continues to work with local groups to create programming and volunteer programs in the parks.

     “We are not only building parks,” Fialkoff said. “We are building communities.”