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History of Tribeca Buildings
The young vandals of Washington Market Park
One of the chairs of the Friends of Washington Market Park sent me the shot above — a huge swatch of pavers have been dug out from around the gazebo. The pavers are set in dirt and have been there for more than four decades, but are now being purposely removed by children who think this is a fun activity.
She then sent the photo of a mom and three young kids playing with the arrangement under the climbing equipment, below. (I didn’t run the one with people in it since I couldn’t know if they gathered them or just found them there.)
This is just ridiculous, that the parents and caregivers of these kids are allowing them — maybe even helping them — vandalize the park. It is then left to either the Friends or the Parks Department to repair it, and thousands have gone into that already. (Below, a dad and park worker gather the pavers for safekeeping.)
(Full disclosure: I am on the Friends board, but thankfully this problem is left to others.)
“It’s disappointing to see the pavers being pulled up and scattered throughout the park and playground, but what makes it especially hard is watching it happen in plain sight of parents and caregivers who aren’t stepping in,” said Amandalyn Jones from the Friends. “So many people give their time and energy to this park — volunteers, neighbors, and community members — and we owe it to each other to help protect it.”
This has been going on for a while, and at first Friends board members did some DIY fixes, all the while collecting the pavers they found around the park and even on the streets nearby. The Parks Department fixed some in the front of the gazebo.
The park was designed and built in 1980 and has mostly custom features — which is both the joy and the hardship of it now, decades later. Nothing is an easy fix and some elements — like the old-timey pump that was in the water play area — are impractical to replace. But it is also one of the cutest parks in the system.
Friends is hopeful that, together with the Parks Department, they will be able to restore the pavers soon.
“Loose pavers are a real safety concern, and we’d love to work together on a solution before anyone gets hurt,” said Amandalyn.
Let’s hope the whole thing does not get paved over with asphalt out of frustration…
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You would hope the parent or guardian these children are with would stop the kid from doing this, but clearly not.
Is there a sign saying not to dig them up? Without an imposed common sense test before entry to the park, you can’t really weed out the dumb ones. I haven’t been in that park for so long, but it seems ridiculous that either the caretakers or the parents are letting this happen and think it’s OK. Smh
The gazebo to that slide are quite far. Do we really think small children are digging out 30 year old pavers and moving them all the way to the slide? And /or parents are helping them? My guess is the stones were already loose and over time someone carried some over or someone thought it would make for a fun picture and that children are not intentionally digging these up…
Sorry, but they are digging them up.
Hilarious reaction
The children are indeed digging them up and moving them. I saw one boy loading them on to his scooter , moving them half way around the park then building what he called a “scooter killer,” to make a hazard for kids on scooters. I have no idea how to stop this if the parents or caregivers allow it. I did tell one caregiver to stop her charge from trying to pull down and break branches off of a tree.
Entitled parents = entitled children.
Pavers are also missing right out side the entrance to the park.
how about mixing some poison ivy in with the grout?
Is the Parks Dept or the Friends allowed to impose fines for this, for damaging public property or something? And would it help to post signs?
When we neighbors organized to create this lovely )then private) park back in 1983 we had on site paid staff who monitored the grounds with great care, as did most parents who were thrilled to have our first green space. If no one is supervising the grounds on site now that the city has taken over control it’s absolutely up to the parents to police the grounds themselves or this once beautiful space will fall into ruin. How sad.
There is staff there now. Parents do NOT like being told what to do.