Where can my children play safely? In the urban wilderness that is New York City, most parents would be hard-pressed to come up with answers. A third option to playgrounds and parks may lie right under our noses, say the authors of Playing in the City: Designing for Children in Community Gardens, a publication that is slated for release this winter. A collaboration between the Design Trust for Public Space and the CUNY Children’s Environments Research Group (CERG), the manual directs apartment-dwellers with no backyards to forge a new frontier a block or two from home — the local community garden. “Young children want to play all the time, not only when they’re taken [to parks and playgrounds,]” says Roger Hart, CERG co-director. “If you have to wait to play, you’ve already killed the most important quality of play — that it’s a voluntary and spontaneous activity; not something that should be programmed into a Filofax.” In addition to physical activity, children also need creative play. This is not something that is readily afforded by traditional playgrounds. “[In playgrounds,] it’s only one kind of play,” says Tessa Huxley, executive director of Battery Park City Parks Conservancy, and a parent herself. “It’s about large motor activity and in fact it gets pretty boring, pretty fast. How many times can you run up to the top of the slide and slide down?” Children also need the opportunity to put together their own play space, according to Donna Walcavage, a city-based landscape architect and urban designer. “We need something that isn’t already structured so we can offer children the opportunity to manipulate their environment,” she says. “That’s why swings are so popular, because kids can move them themselves. Kids do need physical play, but that’s all they’re getting right now.”
It doesn’t take much more than some earth and a little water to make a child happy, says Roger Hart. That’s where community gardens come in. “Nature is more diverse than anything we humans could ever build,” Hart says. “All young children should have free spontaneous access to a green play space, because it gives them an amazingly large range and repertoire of choices in terms of the types of play they can do. We can start listing them all night if we started to, compared to what you can do if you put people on top of a blacktop or rubberized mat surface with five different pieces of play equipment.” Parents and community gardeners can find ways to create these “little corners of anarchy,” as Hart terms them, in Playing in the City. “Children don’t need a lot of space to be able to play in sand or water or to build houses with branches,” he says. “Even a corner of the community garden is valuable for them.” Since community gardens are surrounded by fences and are staffed by members of the neighborhood, says Hart, parents don’t have to hover over their children or interrupt them all the time. If a play structure is built, it should be one that isn’t an immediately recognizable or identifiable construction (such as a castle or pirate’s ship). “Kids just make up ‘whatever’ that day,” says Walcavage, the landscape architect. “You can put a wheel on a panel and it can be an airplane one day, a boat the next, or a car. Just give kids a spot on their scale and they’ll take care of themselves.” One or two parents with average carpentry skills is all you need, Hart says. If a playhouse is built, it shouldn’t be one that is finished and faultless. “Children just need a scaffolding, basically, on which they can hang their own sheets, their own weedings, and their own branches.” The advantages of this kind of play are manifold. “There are benefits in terms of children’s social development, their physical dexterity, their ability to manipulate and construct things,” Hart says. “There is the opportunity for social dramatic play, and finally, it’s also important for individual fantasy play.” Parents also need to learn to take a few risks, according to Tessa Huxley. “There are a lot of people who think that if they let their children’s hands get dirty, it’s a problem,” she says. “If you’re willing to let them take a few risks, we definitely have options. There’s more to play than just playgrounds.” For more information about Playing in the City: Designing for Children in Community Gardens, visit www.designtrust.org.
Update: NYC’s Community Gardens
By Kirsten Matthew
For years, the city’s community gardens have been something of a battlefield. In the ‘60s, garden advocates began petitioning the city to keep community gardens out of the hands of developers. They fought to save their neighborhoods’ only green spaces — a place where they could plant tomato gardens and build sandboxes for their children. In the late ‘90s, when the city tried to develop some of those lots, the community gardeners rose up to the challenge, fending them off as the sanctioned squatters they had effectively become. The squabble later intensified when the New York State attorney general’s office sued the city, claiming that it was in violation of a state law that mandates review prior to urban green space development. The plot thickened still more when the Giuliani administration adopted a policy that city lots should cease being community gardens and used instead for low-income housing or put up for sale. The lawsuit with the attorney general’s office went unresolved through the end of the administration’s term. Finally, under an agreement between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and State Attorney Gen. Elliot Spitzer, 500 community gardens were spared from the backhoe last fall; many others were turned over for the development of city-sponsored housing. Now that some of the dust has settled around the prolonged legal dispute, the grass is suddenly looking greener for some community gardens. In January, the Trust for Public Land (TPL), the city’s oldest and largest urban initiative, was awarded $20,000 by HSBC In the Community, a foundation established by HSBC Bank USA. The award was given in support of environmental education and work in youth-based community gardens. This is the second consecutive year the TPL has received the environmental award. In the past two decades, the TPL has gained permanent protection for over 300 acres of scarce city land, providing organizational and construction assistance to hundreds of community groups. The funds will go to the TPL’s Children’s Gardening Program, launched in 1991 to create gardening spaces for children in public schools and neighborhood community gardens, to develop on-site educational programs, and train teachers and parents to conduct outdoor programs for children throughout the city. Serving more than 2,500 children ages 5-14 in five school districts, the program has established youth gardens and hands-on outdoor environmental education programs at 39 locations around the city. For more information about The Trust for Public Land or the Children’s Gardening Program, go to www.tpl.org.
Business of Parenting
City Family’s Play-Space Project Goes Cyber
By Danielle Sullivan
Have you ever run out of ideas for cold or rainy days spent inside with rambunctious preschoolers? Or have you ever wished for a perfectly child-friendly and beautifully decorated room for your little one, but can’t find what you’re looking for in the typical store? This is how Brooklyn parents Di-ann Eisnor and Jason Wilson felt when they wanted to decorate their daughter’s room. Either the typical room furnishings were creatively stagnating, or the prices were extraordinary. Rather than settle for what was available to them, they decided to create what they envisioned. Shortly before their daughter, Emiko, was born, Eisnor and Wilson searched for a nursery environment that would be both stimulating and safe, but also conducive to learning and exploration. Dissatisfied with what was being offered on the market, they began to create pieces of their own design. They ended up with six pieces of furniture that doubled as toy storage and interactive play equipment. The initial nightmare of learning about codes, inspections, and material and construction safety turned into their dream of a beautiful setting for their own child — which then blossomed into a business. Appropriately called the Wilson Family Project, this original creation and three prototypes recently debuted in the Portland Children’s Museum in Oregon. The play-spaces are safe, durable, imaginative backdrops designed to encourage fantasy-based and inspired play. The first, called Emiko’s Tree, consists of a lifelike tree complete with welcoming branches. A small area rests midway up the tree, where children can climb in. While it provides an area that is favorable to quiet play and reading, it also serves as a model from which children can climb, swing from, or run around. The Wilson Family Project was conceived partly in response to numerous studies which supported the idea that by having an invigorating home environment, a child’s learning and developmental skills will flourish. Consequently, the features of the play-spaces are designed to enhance the child’s natural curiosity and love for learning. Although not a lot of room is needed to accommodate a play-space (only an area 5 feet long, by 3 feet wide, by 4 feet high), each model can easily fit one child and one adult. Covered by soft foam to ensure safety, these modular pieces can be assembled and re-assembled with one screw gun. Another factor that went into the thinking process of the project was the need of both the child and the parent to be able to fully enjoy their home without interfering with each other’s needs. Citing the wants of many younger couples with children, Jason Wilson says, “There is a generation of parents striving to merge their existing active lifestyles with that of their kids. We’re excited about ways to converge kids’ and adults’ environments instead of seeing separate or one-sided realities.” As anyone with small children knows, when the kids are happy, the parents are happy. With many parents working more at home, by either telecommuting or engaging in side projects, these play-spaces allow the child an exciting and stimulating place to entertain themselves when Mom or Dad needs a few minutes to themselves. In addition, reading side by side in Emiko’s tree or just relaxing together can be an invaluable experience for both. The success of the Wilson Family Project, without a doubt, stems from the fact that the idea grew out of a genuine need. It was a case of parents who wanted something special for their child. Unlike many other trends, or popular but useless products geared towards children, these play-spaces were created based on developmental research and out of a genuine love of fostering a nurturing and explorative environment. Eisnor is still taken aback by the rapid success, “I’m surprised that this could be what we do for a living,” she says. Wilson and Eisnor are still exploring the possibilities of enlarging the scope of venues where play-spaces could flourish, such as schools and retail environments. After all, the more fun a child has at a given place, the more parents will take their children. In the works, also, is a book starring one of the characters from a play-space, “The Exquisite Beast”. Wilson encourages other parents who dream of starting their own business to enlist the help of family when it comes to embarking on a project like this. “Utilize whatever is at your disposal to make it happen. We have family in Portland, and knew we needed that kind of support, so we went there for a while to work on this.” Eisnor’s advice to other entrepreneurial parents: “If you have an idea you’re excited about, don’t hold back. Use your network to learn and get contacts or help whenever you can. People generally want to be helpful and see good ideas happen”. Play-spaces can be ordered through the website at http://www.0009.org/play or by calling (917) 701-0994. They may be custom made, and installation in New York City is included.
