Brooklyn Parks Top List Of Injury Claims; Clinton Hill Playgrounds Are Included

Heather Chin -
Photo courtesy of NYC Parks Department.

Brooklyn parks collectively earned the dubious honor of having the most playground injury complaints — 209 — made against them over the past decade, according to a recent Claimstat report by Comptroller Scott Stringer that also noted that the 175 settled Brooklyn claims alone cost the city over $6.6 million ($6,604,664 to be exact), at an average of $37,741 per settlement.

Fort Greene Park received no injury claims during this period and fortunately, only two local parks (see the map here), all on the Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy border, received claims against them:

Inspections over the last decade at these parks turned up occasional “unacceptable” levels of glass, graffiti, pavement and equipment damage, litter, weeds and lawns (Lafayette Gardens Playground) and graffiti, litter, pavement and equipment damage, tree issues, ice, and fences (Taaffe Playground).

Taaffe Playground has actually been closed since Hurricane Sandy and is part of a Brooklyn-wide Parks renovation project that is 23.5 percent complete. The $2.4 million project “will reconstruct play equipment, safety surfacing, handball courts, basketball courts, pavements, fencing, plantings and general site work.” It is scheduled to be complete in April of 2016.

Council District 35, represented by Councilmember Laurie Cumbo, saw nine injury claims, primarily at parks in Bed-Stuy.

Brooklyn Community Board 2 — which includes Brooklyn Bridge Park and Fort Greene Park — saw four claims.

Causes for injuries cited citywide included:

  • improper surfacing—including missing or defecting matting, cracked or broken surfaces, holes in the ground, and rubber mats that burn too hot in summer months—which accounted for 176 claims during this time period, over 30 percent of the total;
  • Insufficient maintenance and defective equipment, such as swings and slides (NO defective equipment was cited in Brooklyn parks);
  • Improper playground design; and
  • Protruding nails and/or debris (NO nails were cited in Brooklyn complaints)

Citywide, city taxpayers shelled out over $20.6 million to settle injury claims; “annual claims have risen 53 percent over the last ten years, from a low 45 claims in FY05 to a high of 69 claims in FY14,” Stringer’s report noted.

Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst’s 43rd Council District had the highest number of claims citywide, while Community Board 7 in South Slope, Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park had the second highest number of claims when broken down by CB.