BROWNSVILLE — Castles, moats, forts and more can be seen at Brownsville’s Betsy Head Park with the debut of a new “Imagination Playground.”
Using giant foam building blocks, kids can construct their own play spaces through the spring and summer.
The city’s Parks Department, elected officials, and architecture firm Rockwell Group unveiled the approximately 1.4-acre renovated playground in late April, with the addition of 230 Imagination Playground blocks, fixed equipment such as swings, slides, a climbing bridge, and more.
The Brooklyn neighborhood has been “very much underserved,” Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver said, and was a community “in desperate need of open-space resources.”
“There’s something about letting a child use their imagination as they play and getting healthy at the same time,” he added. “That’s something we find really appealing.”
The space is the second permanent Imagination Playground in the city, with the first located at Burling Slip in the Financial District.
The Brownsville park, situated between Dumont and Blake avenues and Thomas S. Boyland and Bristol streets, received a $5.05 million makeover, according to the Parks Department.
There’s a treehouse concept with a ramp throughout rising 6 feet, said David Rockwell, founder and President of the Rockwell Group, as well as a sand and water play area, sound funnels and speakers.
The renovated playground has a treehouse concept with a ramp throughout rising six feet. Photo credit: Malcolm Pinckney/NYC Parks
Renovations include fixes to the basketball and handball courts, with bleachers installed in between. The park has a new, small fitness area for adults, and existing game tables and benches have been updated, Rockwell added.
The project was conceived as an “ever-changing landscape of loose parts that kids can manipulate and put together in new ways, endlessly, such that no visit to the playground would be the same,” he said.
The Rockwell Group designed the park pro-bono.
“Imagination Playground is a transformable environment where every day is a different experience,” Rockwell said. “Children play most creatively in settings they can manipulate.”
Trained workers will oversee the space to maintain and manage the blocks, which will be stored on site, according to the Parks Department.
The fixed play equipment will be available year-round, and the Imagination Playground blocks are available in the spring and summer.
