By Scott Etkin
During sweltering summer days, the need to get a drink from water fountains in the city’s parks and playgrounds can be vital.
But a significant portion of the 216 water fountains in Riverside Park, Central Park, and Upper West Side playgrounds are broken, not accessible to the public, or not flowing or draining properly, according to a review conducted by staff and interns from the office of New York City Councilmember Gale Brewer.
In Riverside Park, 26% of the water fountains that Brewer’s team checked did not work. West Side Rag found similar results in an informal spot check on Monday morning: One of the four water fountains visited between West 59th and 76th streets in Riverside Park was not working.
In Central Park, Brewer’s team found that 77% of the fountains flowed or drained poorly or not at all, making the fountains difficult to use without coming into contact with the faucet.
Not having reliable access to water fountains could lead some people to buy bottled water instead. “It’s crazy that we’ve come to accept spending money on harmful single-use plastic water bottles filled with what’s normally a free public amenity,” Brewer wrote in her newsletter.
The survey also covered water fountains in playgrounds – many of which are jointly operated as schoolyards for adjacent schools – finding that one in five did not work.
In a letter to New York City Parks Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, Brewer highlighted the broken fountain at the Sol Bloom Playground at West 91st Street between Columbus and Central Park West, which was recently renovated.
“The brand-new water fountain at Sol Bloom has been repaired frequently but breaks down the next day,” Brewer wrote. “Parents tell me the fixture needs to be replaced.”
WSR checked the playground’s fountain on Monday morning and found both faucets were not working.
The survey also identified problems related to access. 17 fountains were closed due to nearby construction. 15 fountains listed in the NYC Open Data Portal and the Parks Department’s “Cool It!” map were actually inside Parks department offices and therefore inaccessible to the public. Another 17 that were listed on these online resources were missing, according to the team.
NYC Parks contested the survey’s findings. “CM Brewer’s interns surveyed 216 drinking fountains. Of those, 90% were fully operational, providing critical drinking water to the public,” a spokesperson said. “We will review the status of the remaining fountains once the CM’s office shares the list with us, as requested.”
Water fountains are a priority for Upper West Siders, at least among those who voted in last year’s participatory budgeting process. One of the projects selected to be funded included $375,000 for five new water fountains throughout Riverside Park between West 54th and 96th streets.
Local Law 93, a recently implemented law that was introduced by Brewer, requires additional water fountains to be added in the coming years. The law mandates the Parks department to install at least 50 outdoor drinking fountains within 100 feet of park entrances by 2035.
“I am proud to have introduced this legislation,” Brewer wrote in the letter to the Parks commissioner. “However, a recurring theme at the City Council hearing for this bill, as well as at FY26 budget hearings, was the need to better maintain the water fountains that exist already.”
The full results from the water fountain survey can be found – HERE.
Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.
Wait until you have to use an app on your phone to access a drinking fountain.
In the near term, gotta support Poland Spring and the like.
75K for a water fountain, that is ridicules.
OPOD,
Huh? I didn’t comment on the cited cost.
You do know that in the west 70s up to the mid 80s, smartphones are now required for those wishing to park in formerly metered spaces — at least those on the side streets?
Actually by NYC standards sounds like a bargain.
Only about 3 times the actual cost.
Isn’t this the Parks Department job ?
Instead of counting water fountains, fix the agency responsible for them.
They are also a health hazard, I’ve seen some of them used for purposes other than drinking.
It seems like Brewer’s office just counts stuff.
Last week it was ice cream trucks, this week water fountains.
ice cream trucks should be inspected by
health dept or RFK ,Jr. I suspect this product
is loaded with chemicals far removed from dairy and sugar
The Dept of Parks does not report to Brewer. What is wrong with highlighting the problem by taking a first step to document its extent?
Understood.
But, isn’t the Parks Dept . responsible for the water fountains ?
Shouldn’t the Parks Dept. be counting them ?
Instead of counting water fountains, fix the agency responsible for them.
(Brewer’s office needs to be counting ice cream trucks.)
I don’t know of a city agency that we wouldn’t think needs fixing.
I am imagining city-run grocery stores with this level of control of basic functions.
I was told that if a request is made to replace a dead street tree, it takes two years or more for a new tree (maybe two inch trunk) to be planted.
I am glad that Gale Brewer is making an effort to get quality of life improved.
Have to make sure these are working so when dog owners encourage and allow their dogs to jump up and lap the fixtures there is water there for them.
I totally agree. Why should dogs suffer the taxpayers inability to make the agency effective? All people should all be obligated to carry water for dogs and a bowl when out in public.
I was about to write the same.
Easily solved by replacing them with the kind with the spigot and bowl at the base for dogs.
How about instead of excuses, it being solved by dog owners having one bit of common sense, courtesy and respect for their neighbors? Bring a bowl with you if your dog is so desperate for water on walks.
How about if you don’t want dogs drinking out of fountains for people, providing a reasonable alternative, i.e. spigots and bowls on the ground, like already exist in a lot of locations, including dog runs in the park? This is not a new, radical proposition.
And instead of pathological, nasty, aggressive derision toward dog owners, a bit of common sense, courtesy, and respect for neighbors who are RESPONSIBLE pet owners. The social contract runs both ways, Neighbor.
And FWIW, I pretty much always do take a collapsible plastic bowl attached to my dog’s leash, and use the public fountains to fill it up. But a dish can be lost, or forgotten, or develop a leak. So it’s good to have the alternative.
another defensive dog owner – about the same attitude as those that use tree wells as dog toilets – oh well …
on another note – near the dog run in RS Park at about 104th St – there used to be a water fountain – it somehow got destroyed but was never replaced.
Thank you. I figured your first comment was sarcasm. The parks staff tell me not to drink from the fountains because the dog owners put their dogs up there to drink. Yuck. Anyhow dogs are more important than humans here (sarcasm).
But these water fountains need replacing anyway. For your health wouldn’t it be better to get the dog friendly kind? I didn’t excuse dog owners behavior. I attempted to provide a solution.
While the solution is good, we shouldn’t go out of our way to find fixes that excuse entitled and irresponsible behavior.
What happened to personal accountability?
We aren’t going out of our way. These are obviously an option for the parks department since they are in use in other spots. And nothing I have suggest is or sounds like an excuse. It would just make us all feel better if we need water from a fountain.
Not that this should make a difference bur I don’t have a dog. I am making this suggestuons for the sake of the humans.
$375k for five water fountains is an absurd cost for something that hardly works, and even when it does is often used for pets or other more disgusting purposes. Bottled water is not necessarily the consequence of removing these fountains permanently. Folks can buy a cheap stainless steel water bottle for five bucks and fill it up at home and take it around on a hot day. $375,000 plus maintenance repair and the fact that it doesn’t work means that this supposedly free Public good is actually just a waste of taxpayer resources and a way for politicians buddies to charge absurd amounts for little work. Brewer should be calling for the elimination of all of these fountains.
I went to the beach in Galveston TX once, you would love it there. No water fountains, no bathrooms, no lifeguards, no benches, no boardwalk, no garbage cans because then they’d have to pay someone to empty them — they eliminated everything that might require taxpayer funding and all opportunity for government waste. And it sucked let me tell you.
How can any reasonable person compare not having lifeguards to being offended by spending $375,000 on five water fountains? If you wanna have a civil discussion, please don’t set up strawmen. Garbage cans are an obvious necessity in any public park. Likewise bathrooms, and janitorial staff paid to keep them clean, is also a necessity in many public parks, if not all. But I think there are plenty of people who read this publication that would agree with me that water fountains don’t fall into the same category. So yeah, I guess Galveston Texas has no public services in many of its public parks. Cool I don’t live in Galveston Texas so not really my business. I would like to have some level of prioritization in my city with respect of how we spend public dollars. $375,000 for five water fountains, and the nearly $4000,000. It will take to build the additional 50 that have been proposed seems like a horrible waste of money to me and many other quite reasonable people here. Frankly insulting people for having a view that is different than yours is part of the reason why the backlash against the left has been so severe such that even moderates are turned off. You will not convince anyone to think more like you by insulting them. You will turn them off and push them to the other extreme.
How about working to *maintain* a public good instead of going on some neoliberal rant about how public drinking water is ‘a waste of taxpayer resources’?
Those five fountains, overpriced as they may be, are doing far more for public health than the two NYPD officers who cost about the same
See my comment above with respect to making absurd connections between water, fountains, and completely unrelated things like police officers. Two things can be true. Spending $375,000 on water fountains can be objectionable and a total waste (I’m curious what you think is the upper limit for an acceptable cost for these five drinking fountains). At the same time, you can believe that the NYPD needs reform in one way or another. In addition, your claim that public water fountains do more for public health than the officers do has no basis in fact. How do you conclude the public water fountains do anything for public health? How should societies determine how to spend limited resources? You have to measure the value of that Public good and to me I would rather spend that money on better education for kids. Should there be any discussion of cost at all in your view?
Police officers save lives.
Public drinking fountains spread germs,
Police officers play on their phones and steal taxpayer dollars in industrial quantities
Free , clean water DEFINITELY saves lives, particularly during heat waves
You can’t be serious. Police steal taxpayer dollars, and that’s all they do other than playing on their phones?
WSR, you claimed you would not allow misinformation. This is more than just misinformation—it is libel and an overall disgusting comment.
This far-left stuff is gone too far. We, moderates, shouldn’t be tolerating this nonsense
Well put.
Agree.
Bathrooms, please — functioning public bathrooms! If u have water fountains ( essential) then there is even more need for . . .
What, you can’t carry your own bathroom with you when you go outside?
Let’s exercise some personal responsibility, people!
What can you say about a city that, despite it’s very high tax rate, cannot keep it’s bathrooms clean or it’s water fountains working? We pay incredibly high taxes and for what exactly? NYC is a bloated bureaucracy hiring 330,000 people!! who do what exactly? No police to be found (haven’t seen a cop in months) and no enforcement of the laws, but tens of thousands meaningless jobs with full health care and retirement benefits. NYC and NYS in general are probably the worst examples in the world of what happens when government is no longer accountable to its citizens.
All part and parcel of the Parks Department being cut to pieces and the Riverside Parks Conservancy not doing the basics.
Water fountains are just the start. Sinkholes? Tree trimming? Erosion control? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Mamdani should 100% make Parks a focus
I’m laughing at all the comments by people that are so disgusted by the dogs drinking from water fountains.
I haven’t used a water fountain in the park since I saw a video online of a woman using a water fountain, specifically the water fountain at the NW corner of the Great Lawn, as a doggie bidet.
Yes, I am serious, unfortunately
I’ve seen people use park water fountains as a human bidet. The fixtures are unsafe for consumption.
NYC should scrap the high-maintenance germ-laden drinking fountains as currently designed, and instead install water bottle filling stations throughout the city, as many global cities have done. The refill stations are less prone to alternate uses, prevent contact transmission, and provide adequate hydration vs a few sips. Brewer can coordinate reusable bottle giveaways like she did with reusable grocery bags.
One example from Austria.
https://www.visitingvienna.com/eatingdrinking/water/