NEW YORK CITY — Park sprinklers are a boon to New York City parents: they provide a place for children to cool down during the oppressive summer heat.
DNAinfo New York scoured the parks to deliver all the details parents should know to pick the best parks with sprinklers.
Parents and caregivers named a few valued amenities they look for in a good sprinkler. For one, nearby shady spots where they can sit and monitor their children are a big plus, as dad Paul Sikar noted of his local sprinkler park Charybdis Playground at Astoria Park in Queens.
“This park is the best,” he said. “It doesn’t get too hot here, even on a hot day.”
At the Imagination Playground on Front Street in the Financial District, a deck with umbrellas allows for caregivers to look on from a breezy vantage point. Up in the South Bronx, parents at Hunts Point Riverside Park can keep an eye on their children while sitting under a canopy of flowering bushes.
Clear sightlines are also a bonus.
The Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side is considered a undiscovered treasure among neighborhood parents. A large grassy bank next to the sprinklers gives parents plenty of room to spread out, enjoy the scenery and watch children without fear of them wandering off unseen.
“I love that it's flat and large," parent Lara Salemi said of the grounds.
“I like that [the sprinklers] are set back so the kids gravitate to the sprinklers and not the exits," said Kevin Jean-Charles, a father of a 4- and 2-year-old on the Lower East Side. The Sara D. Roosevelt Park at Hester and Chrystie streets provides his kids with fun that keeps them away from the street traffic in the area.
The gated spots are particularly handy for those overseeing groups of children in summer programs, like assistant teacher Kia Henley in the South Bronx. She takes her charges over to Macombs Dam Park each weekday.
“It’s gated from end to end, so you can’t lose anybody,” she noted.
But no matter where children are in the city, it’s clear that their time in the water is important.
The sprinklers are a daily destination for Marco Rosario, 55, and his 4-year-old granddaughter. They head to the River Avenue Park in the South Bronx regularly.
“As soon as she wakes up,” he said, “she wants to go.”
Here are DNAinfo's individual neighborhood guides to playground water sprinklers:
Queens:
Astoria, Long Island City, Woodside and Sunnyside
Forest Hills, Rego Park and Jamaica
Brooklyn:
Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook
Crown Heights and Prospect Heights
Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and DUMBO
Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Gowanus
Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick
Manhattan:
East Village and Lower East Side
Murray Hill, Gramercy, Flatiron and Midtown East
Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island
