May 31-June 6, 2019 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
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Students together to create playground
Little Neck school community collaborates with designers to build new recreation area
‘ This is not going to do. This is
not a playground; this is a lot
of asphalt.'”
Soon after, students
including fifth-grade student
Izabella Kohan got to work
on designing a state-ofthe
art playground for the
current and future P.S. 221
community. Kohan and other
student designers helped to
plan the project as part of
Trust for Public Land’s NYC
Playgrounds Program. Since
the program’s inception in
1996, the nonprofit has both
designed and built 202 school
and community playgrounds
in the five boroughs.
“Being on the design team
was a very fun and interesting
experience for me,” said
Kohan. “First, each and every
design-team member got a
booklet with questions on what
the theme of the playground
should be, what kind of play
area should we have and so
much more.”
Subsequent steps involved
RIDING HIGH IN COLLEGE POINT
The colors of Old Glory were proudly displayed during the College Point Memorial Day Parade
on May 26. For more pictures from Memorial Day commemorations across Queens, see
Pages 13-15. Photo: Max Parrott/QNS
BY JENNA BAGCAL
Imagine a school
playground designed by kids,
for kids. One Little Neck
public school and a nonprofit
organization have made that
dream a reality for hundreds
of students.
On May 28, the P.S. 221
The North Hills School
community broke ground on
the community playground
at 57-40 Marathon Pkwy. The
students and community
began thinking of playground
designs to transform the
school’s asphalt yards over
a year ago and voted on the
designs that would eventually
become their shared space.
Plans for the playground
will include a synthetic turf
field surrounded by a threelane
running track, areas to
play volleyball and basketball,
a junior tennis court, benches,
trees, play equipment and an
outdoor classroom.
“When I first came here,
one of the things I do is I look
at every single playground,”
said Councilman Barry
Grodenchik. “Ms. Boullard
and I were standing
somewhere over there, I think
on the second or third floor,
and I said to her, ‘Where is the
playground?’ And she said to
me, ‘I’m looking at it.’ So I said,
students creating concrete
designs for the playground,
measuring the available space
choosing the furniture within
a certain budget and creating
small-scale models.
“The design team members
of P.S. 120 showed us what their
finished playground looked
like and we had a wonderful
time there,” Kohan said. “We
incorporated some of their
ideas into ours.”
The Trust for Public
Land collaborated with the
Department of Education
(DOE), Department of
Environmental Protection
(DEP) and the School
Construction Authority
(SCA) on the student-designed
project, which is set to open
in fall 2019.
“Finally our vision of
turning these three asphalt
yards into a wonderful,
eco-friendly, beautiful new
playground has become
a reality,” said P.S. 221
Principal Patricia Bullard.
“Our whole community, my
students, staff, our parents
and the community at large
is eagerly anticipating all
that this new playground has
to offer us.”
Grodenchik and
Queens Borough President
Melinda Katz helped fund
the project.
Vol. 28 No. 22 48 total pages
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