By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT — Imagination Playground is open for business, the Parks Department reassured concerned residents this week.
Local parents were upset after the city shuttered the brand-new $4.5 million park for much of the winter, closing it entirely during inclement weather and opening it for just three hours on sunny weekdays.
"I'm very concerned with it being a seasonal park, particularly in a neighborhood that has no [other] parks," said Ann DeFalco, chairwoman of Community Board 1's Youth and Education Committee, at a meeting Tuesday night.
Nancy Barthold, assistant commissioner of recreation and programing at the Parks Department, replied that the city is still working out how to keep the park open in the winter. But now that it's spring, the playground is open at least eight hours a day seven days a week, she said.
"If we shut people out this winter, we didn't mean to," Barthold said. "We are not looking to close it. We want it open."
The reason the Burling Slip park was closed so often is because the innovative design — featuring stackable foam blocks and water play areas — requires professional "play associates" to monitor the children and equipment. The staff is expensive, and while architect David Rockwell set up an endowment for the playground, Barthold said she is trying to use it wisely so it lasts as long as possible.
Barthold said she has spoken to some local parents who want to create a Friends of Imagination Playground group, which would help raise money to keep the playground open all day year-round.
"It's a work in progress," Barthold said. "We're happy to work with you."
One of the heaviest users of the playground starting this fall will be the Blue School, a new private school run by the founders of the Blue Man Group theater troupe. The school is opening a couple blocks away on Water Street in September and does not have its own playground.
"We're going to depend on that park hugely," said Matt Goldman, co-founder of The Blue School.
Goldman hopes to use the playground each morning so students can blow off steam before class, and he also wants it to be a gathering place for families after school.
Barthold said she would be open to Goldman's requests, as long as they don't conflict with other schools that want to use the playground.
Imagination Playground is now open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on weekends, according to the park's website. The playground will stay open another hour or two in the evening once the Parks Department hires more seasonal staff, Barthold said.
