Gus Saltonstall
The River Run Playground’s river might not run dry after all.
The New York City Parks Department first presented its plan in August for the $7 million redesign of the popular playground in Riverside Park near West 82nd Street. In that presentation, the proposed renderings of the redesigned playground included the removal of its river element, which runs through the heart of the space.
Following pushback at that proposed design decision — and other input from the community — the city agency has reworked its proposed redesign plan for the Upper West Side playground to preserve the river. The new proposal was posted Thursday on Community Board 7’s website.
The Parks Department will present the revised redesign of the playground at a CB7 Parks & Environment Committee meeting on Monday at 6:30 p.m. You can register for the meeting, which will include a period of public testimony, HERE.
Here is what the new proposal of the River Run Playground looks like, in which you can see the river element still in the middle of the space.
And here is what the previous rendering of the proposed redesign of the space looked like, which removed the river.
The choice to keep the river element is not the only change from the Parks Department’s initial proposed redesign of the River Run Playground. Another has to do with seesaws.
There are three seesaws in the UWS playground that are among the last in New York City, due to safety guidelines.
The first draft of the playground’s redesign, submitted in August, completely removed the seesaws from the space. But the updated, proposed redesign of the space would keep one seesaw in the playground. It would just look a little different.
In terms of the project’s timeline, the design phase will last for around another six months, followed by a year-long bid process from potential construction firms. Construction is then projected to begin in 2027, during which time the playground will be closed for a year.
You can check out the new proposed redesign for yourself — HERE.
Read More:
- UWS River Run Playground Might Lose its River
- The Likely Last Days of One of the Upper West Side’s Last Seesaw Sets
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Glad they’re keeping the river!
As the mom of a toddler, I’m trying to wrap my head around how this 4 seat see saw is supposed to work. It seems like a really hard balancing and coordination task to get 4 separate kiddos to sit on that thing at one time!
Glad they kept the river. Now that have to find a way to keep it clean and free of moss and other microbial growth that make it dirty and unsightly.
At last a bit of sanity…
I hope they don’t plan to mess with the sandbox, which is a true work of art!
Glad they are keeping the river – it is so core to that playground – every kid who has ever played there knows what major towns/cities lie along the Hudson.
It is amazing how much time and effort is going into this. He had his issues but Robert Moses could have built dozens of playgrounds with less time, effort and money than this is taking. So much bureaucracy. Though I guess in this case the bureaucracy saved the river, so that is good.
I don’t know why they can’t do the construction in sections to keep at least part of the playground open – the way it is configured, that shouldn’t be too hard. I still think that a minor touch-up would be sufficient and the money would be better spent elsewhere.
I like that idea. We have so many playgrounds closed.
I never thought of that but it sounds super smart
As a kid who goes to play grounds I hate when I can’t go in to a play ground that I like because it’s renovating.
Also look at dinosaurs!IT’S DROWNING
He was one of history’s greatest builders, like it or not.
Further proof that see-saw design has its ups and downs.
Well done.
As one who has seen countless kids get hit hard in the face by a see saw after hopping off, I have mixed feelings about them.
In my day it was a bad idea to go on a see-saw with somebody you didn’t know. Reason: some of the kids thought it was hilarious while you’re up high to jump off and let you crash down giving you a huge backache.
Absolutely agreed. The City is considering see-saws that have only one side to them to prevent these injuries.
The hold-up is that the current federal government wants to regulate which side (the “see” or the “saw”) may be used, and cannot decide which more favors the Republicans.
The proposed flower beds and shrubs, etc are lovely but it’s more important to have free play space for kids to run in, and play games like tag, learn to ride tricycles, etc. They also cut off parental sight-lines.
I like it but I don’t think that we should close another play ground
Glad they are working in so much nonplayable garden space in the playground. There is clearly no room for flowers in the surrounding PARK. At least they also plan on removing all shade trees for our comfort.
Neither of those photos are connected to reality. The jungle gym section is twice as wide as in real life. Unless they plan to take away all the trees and the park path on the other side of the playground, there is no space. (And even if they do, it still might be tight.) Same for the swing area – it’s at least twice as wide as reality. Take a look at the big climbing rock along the side – in real life it’s probably closer to 2/3rd the length of the park.