Tompkins Square Park overhaul wins board panel vote, outdoor gym included

A community board parks committee in the East Village voted Thursday night to support rebuilding a whole section of Tompkins Square Park, including the basketball courts, the children’s pool and the outdoor fitness area. Regulars whose routines center on the park’s steel pull-up bars objected.

The parks department put three options on the table. One would have kept the 1990s-era workout area untouched, the result park preservationists had hoped for. The committee instead went with the department’s recommendation to redo the entire area, gym equipment included. The resolution now heads to the full board, which votes on it when it next meets.

What the Tompkins Square Park renovation includes

For children, the chosen option adds a miniature pool built into the ground, with upgraded infrastructure. The city would install detention basins beneath the rebuilt basketball court to handle stormwater better and keep sewage out of the East River. New materials would replace the workout equipment. In the department’s view, the existing gear is old and due for replacement no matter which option wins, and the new setup would be safer and easier for disabled visitors to use. The department’s first plan dropped the half basketball court in the area, and the committee asked that it stay.

As for money, a parks department presentation put the amount already committed at close to $10 million, with the mayor and the governor as the sources.

Petition and pushback from park regulars

A petition urging the city to leave the working parts of the park alone has drawn upward of 2,600 signatures. Danny Kavadlo trains clients for a living and says he has exercised in the park for over 15 years. In his view there is no reason to touch the fitness area: “we love it the way it is.”

Salo Coslovsky, an urban planning associate professor at New York University who is leading the opposition, said in a statement that critics do not claim nothing needs fixing. He argued the department is “using repairable problems to justify a much larger, more disruptive reconstruction.” Opponents say they will keep pressing their case.

Jonathan Fodi, an electrical engineer who moved to the East Village from Montreal, said the scene at the bars made him want to move there: people of every age and background doing handstands and hanging from the bars while music plays. He said the park has since given him more friends than he can count.