Chelsea Green!
City kids love the playground and all neighborhoods deserve safe, beautiful, well-organized educational play spaces. After 40 years without a new park, Chelsea Green opened as the first new park in the Chelsea neighborhood. Situated on West 20th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, the park is small in size but mighty in its impact.
Pssst…For more parks to visit around New York, check out New and Renovated NYC Playgrounds to Check Out This Summer!
The playground has new and neat play structures on the east side and turf play areas on the west side. There’s a domed play area for the smaller set adjacent to a larger play structure for bigger kids. The domed play area has twin, mini slides, climbing structures, and interactive elements. The larger structure features climbing nets, viewfinders, and a large, long slide with another play area below it. There are also lots of water elements which will allow for lots of fun in the hot sun.
On the west side, there is a circular, play turf area surrounded by shaded benches for caregivers, along with plantings and trees, and space for rotating public art displays and performances.
There was a diverse population from the children playing on the playgrounds to senior citizens who sat on benches reading their morning paper. “As the first new neighborhood park in 40 years, Chelsea Green provides vital public green space for this growing community,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver. “With a play area, shaded seating, and a rain garden, this vibrant park celebrates the energy and ingenuity of the New Yorkers who worked to make this possible.” The community advocated for decades for this moment and is overjoyed to have this bright, vibrant and safe play spaces for our City’s children and families.
For decades East Chelsea has been a ‘parks desert,’ requiring residents to walk a long distance to access green space or a playground,” said City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. “I am so proud to have worked with my neighbors to make this happen, from Participatory Budgeting in 2015 all the way up to today. I thank the New York City Parks department and my colleagues in government for their contributions to Chelsea Green and I urge all Chelsea residents to come out here and enjoy this beautiful new green space in the heart of the City…”
Neighbors and visitors alike are delighted to have Chelsea Green in their “backyard” and it shows that New Yorkers will work tirelessly for the good of the cause.
The quarter-acre park, on West 20th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Manhattan, is the former site of a Department of Sanitation facility demolished by the Department of Design and Construction for the project. The lot has now been transformed into an oasis in a neighborhood that has not had new community-based parkland added in 40 years.
