Mary Alice Lee and Maddalena Polletta from the Trust for Public Land (TPL) work with schools throughout New York City to build new playgrounds. The process of creating the playgrounds involves the students and staff at the school as well as parents and community members in order to build the best playgrounds possible.  It takes three months to design the playground, three months for drawings and approvals, and four to six months to construct the playground.  After a year of hard work, the students from the design team, the school, and the community are able to have fun on the playgrounds! Read more below!

Q: What are the steps for designing and constructing a playground?

1. Design Team: TPL works directly with the students from two or three classes and an afterschool group. The students help to figure out exactly what they want to include in their playground, such as jungle gyms or areas for games.  Also, TPL goes to Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) meetings to reach out to parents. Community members are invited to the afterschool groups and PTA meetings to be included in the design process.
2. Fact-Finding: TPL looks at the existing conditions and surroundings of the site.  It's important to have the kids map the current activities of the playground because TPL isn't there all the time.  They talk about what's really happening on the playground, such as what areas are dangerous, or where teachers smoke cigarettes. The students also learn a lot about planning and design, especially how it relates to math and science. They measure and map the area, look at photos from above the site, and talk with us about the importance of the sun location during the day.  All these different things going on in the existing playground are very important to reach the end design.
3. Survey: After gaining information about the site where the playground will be, the kids come up with lists of ideas for what they want to have and what it should look like.  Then, they make a survey that goes out to the entire school, so that the whole school gets involved.  Based on the survey, the students come up with a list of priorities for what the school and community want in the playground.
4. First Designs: The design team works with a landscape architect to create two-dimensional models of the design. After that, they are narrowed down to two, neither of which is final.
5. Voting: The two designs are discussed and the whole school and community are invited to vote on them.  This is another way to get everyone involved who will be able to use the playground.
6. Final Design and Construction: A final design is presented to the school and community. From start to finish the design process takes three months.  At the end of the three months, TPL is able to start constructing a new playground for the school.

Q: Is TPL involved with the schools after the playground is built?

Mary Alice: Yes, we never say goodbye to a school. Although it's their playground and they are in charge of programs and daily use, we stay really involved.  We have yearly meetings where the schools talk about their successes and failures with the playground.  A lot of times, we use our repair fund to help the schools if something is broken or needs changing.  We also help them with stewardship by offering environmental education workshops like tree pruning/cutting, gardening, and bulb planting. 

Maddalena: We also have stewardship funds that are for the groups to pay for events. Programming is one of the keys to long-term, successful playgrounds. A lot of sites have had health fairs, community days, concert series, and movie showings, so the playgrounds become more than just places to play sports.  There is a social draw for the community.

If your local school is interested in having a new playground, Mary Alice and Maddalena would be happy to talk to them about the program and application process. Since the program is looking for schools that are connected to the community, there are a lot of opportunities to get involved in your neighborhood. TPL would be happy to work on more sites in Harlem because it's a great neighborhood that needs more open space! Email Mary Alice at maryalice.lee@tpl.org or Maddalena at Maddalena.Polletta@tpl.org for more information!

Read more from Mary Alice and Maddalena by clicking the links below: 

• How non-profit Trust for Public Land protects open space in New York City
• How the playgrounds built by the NYC Playground Program are "green"
• Why it's difficult to build fun, exciting playgrounds in New York City
• How schools and communities can work together to build playgrounds in New York City 
• Elements of the Harlem playgrounds constructed by NYC Playground Program
  
• Why it's good to build parks and playgrounds in NYC
• Trust for Public Land's involvement in NYC community gardens

To listen to our interview with Mary Alice Lee and Maddalena Polletta, click here for our podcast page.

Harlem Word is a series of interviews with Harlem health experts, written by HHPC and reviewed by our Health Advisory Board.