Brooklyn, NY – Builder Promised a Year Ago to Revamp Playground, Neighborhood’s Still Waiting

Brooklyn, NY – A deal the city struck with one Brooklyn developer has hardly been a walk in the park.

More than a year ago, builder Shaya Boymelgreen pledged to transform Terrapin Playground, a section of J.J. Byrne Park near Fourth Ave. and Fifth St., in exchange for using the public land as storage for building materials during the construction of the Novo Park Slope condominium.

Boymelgreen told the Parks Department he would deliver a revamped playground sporting a new dog run, handball and basketball courts, gardens and a skateboarding area.

But even though people have moved into the Novo condo and the city is getting ready to start work on a $2.9 million overhaul of an adjoining section of the park, Terrapin remains fenced off to the public, filled with wooden beams, half-dug trenches and a patchwork of cement.

Some park-goers say the city made a rotten deal.
“The city can’t control developers,” said Nick Malter, who takes his dog to J.J. Byrne Park and has been looking forward to the new dog run. “It’s a shame it’s not done already.”

In fact, the Parks Department initially expected the Terrapin renovation to be complete in late summer 2007. When that didn’t happen, it planned two ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the playground this spring and summer, both of which were canceled.

The canceled event last month was supposed to also include a groundbreaking for the multimillion-dollar, publicly funded conversion of a large asphalt yard in the park into a turf field.
Work on the turf conversion next to Terrapin is now scheduled to start today with no fanfare, said Parks Department spokesman Phil Abramson. The city expects the new field to be finished by next summer, but it still can’t say when Boymelgreen will deliver on his promise.

A spokesperson for the developer did not return calls for comments.

“Parks inspects the site regularly, and we are frequently in touch with Boymelgreen about expediting the work so an improved park can be returned to the community,” said Abramson.

Dog trainer Marcia Kanry, who goes to the park every day, said the lack of action on the new Terrapin Playground is a natural outcome of public officials “selling out” to a developer.
“It should never have been a private deal, and now what’s coming out of it is second-rate.”