What’s Up With All The Seth Low Playground Construction?

By now, you may have noticed that a large portion of Seth Low Playground has been gated off by and bulldozers parked are there round the clock.

What we are seeing is the second phase of a multi million dollar city-funded facelift of the park announced in 2013, according to New York City’s Parks Department.

The improvements, which include a $2.46 million facelift of the park’s handball and basketball courts, benches, paths, and landscaping — funded by Councilman David Greenfield ($1.1 mil), the Borough President’s Office ($1.14 mil) and Mayor Bill De Blasio’s administration ($223,000) — began last august, and will wrap up this summer.

“The goal of this project is to provide additional recreation opportunities, especially for children and teenagers, and to provide amenities to encourage greater year-round use of the site,” a Parks Department spokesperson told us in 2013.

The third phase of the project, which involves the construction of two synthetic turf fields, one striped for soccer and one unmarked field for other activities, has been temporarily shelved because it had to be rebid, a Parks spokesperson said. The new projected completion date for the synthetic fields is fall 2017. They will cost a combined $1.9 million from Greenfield’s office and the Borough President’s office.

When complete. the transformation will also includes spectator seating between the two fields, a new planting bed designed as a rain garden, new paved paths, and adult fitness equipment.

As we reported, the reconstruction of Seth Low is long overdue, as it hasn’t been updated in a significant way since 1995.

The Parks Department has shared these sketches of the two ongoing projects: