New York City mayor Eric Adams recently announced a $23 million pilot program to enhance access to public open spaces, playgrounds, and parks at six NYCHA housing developments. The project includes three developments in Queens, two developments in The Bronx, and one development in Brooklyn.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at Pomonok Houses, a 35-building mega-complex in Flushing, Queens, where tenants now have access to outdoor recreational spaces offering fitness equipment, play areas for children, seating, and new landscaping.
Additional developments include Redfern Houses, a nine-building complex in Far Rockaway; Woodside Houses, a 20-building property in Woodside; 1471 Watson Houses, a 179-unity building in the Soundview section of The Bronx; Kingsborough Houses, a 16-building complex in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; and Sotomayor Houses, a 28-building complex also located in Soundview.
“New York City’s parks, playgrounds, and open spaces aren’t luxuries, but necessities—playing a critical role to build community and nurturing our physical, mental, and emotional health,” said mayor Adams. “This investment in NYCHA’s playgrounds and open spaces is a down payment on our city’s future that will pay dividends for generations to come.”
Sotomayor Houses – Nelligan White Architects
Before construction broke ground, NYCHA and NYC Parks met with the residents at Woodside, Pomonok, Redfern, Watson, Sotomayor, and Kingsborough Houses to request feedback on the proposed sites for improved landscaping, parks, and recreational areas.
Enhancements at Pomonok Houses cost approximately $3 million and included 13,000 square feet of new areas and facilities. Project costs for the remaining developments range between $1.9 million at Sotomayor Houses up to $9.3 million at Redfern Houses.
As the most expensive project, scope of work at Redfern Houses will include reconstruction of an existing playground and an adjacent open space. New areas will include a ball field, a basketball court, a handball court, fitness equipment, and a grilling area.
Construction is currently underway at Woodside and Redfern Houses. Construction at Watson and Kingsborough Houses is expected to break ground by spring 2023, and will begin at Sotomayor Houses by summer 2023.
“All New Yorkers deserve to have high-quality parks that are just a short walk away from their homes,” said NYC parks commissioner Sue Donoghue. “We are so proud of our partnership with NYCHA to transform underutilized areas under their jurisdiction into thriving public amenities, and grateful for the hundreds of NYCHA tenants and community members who came out to our input meetings and shared with us their dreams for these spaces.”
As part of the partnership, NYC Parks will maintain and operate the renovated open spaces, once complete.
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What about upper Manhattan? Another mayor that ignores Manhattan.
what about fixing entrance broken door
The photo you’ve used for Pomonok Houses is Queensbridge.
3pm EST..
I guess its just not that important that the wrong photo is up?
Sounds like a new program that means well. So many NYCHA locations have very large surface parking lots. I’ve always wondered why new housing hasn’t been built above these lots. They should be truly affordable as a coop/condo purchase program. The city needs more housing any good way we can get it.
Lipstick on a pig.
Instead of spending another dollar (except of course to make the living spaces habitable and comfortable for the residents, an unfortunately tall order), master plans should be completed for each NYCHA development with the pursuit of totally rebuilding them. Use the Open space to build new state-of-the-art, taller, buildings, then move existing residents into them. Tear down the old buildings and rinse and repeat. We could easily double the existing affordable housing stock over the next five-ten years.
Totally agree – theres a mental block with NYCHA buildings, no thought to rebuilding the complexes is given, meanwhile the repair deficit is well beyond 30 billion! Due to the fact that the amount of land built on is very low (often less than 20%) there is so much missed opportunity to tear them down and start over to build 2x to 3x the housing, more stores, communitity services, etc.; more importantly rebuilding can increase the amount of middle class housing instead of concentrating just the poor living there – true mixed income housing i what the city needs!
Why is Brooklyn District 35 never included Lafayette Gardens Scaffolding need to come down we need new everything the kids have no decent park to play in the benches are tattered and old and our child health Station is closed before Covid. We matter too.
Please Come Help Manhattanville And Grant Houses Please!!!!