"Playground ‘Jail,’ Drawing Outrage, Gets a Face-Lift," - The New York Times
Playground controversies usually involve bickering parents, unruly dogs or bullies.
One exception is at the Tompkins Houses, a housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. An orange jungle gym there, adorned with a cell door, prison bars and the word “jail,” has set off outrage in the neighborhood and the blogosphere, along with a hasty official response.
Children may play cops and robbers all the time, but putting a pretend jail in a public housing playground in a historically black community struck some residents as an insult.
“We started complaining because it was like promoting kids to go to jail,” said Natasha Godley, 37, who has a 6-year-old son.
The prison look was part of the original design of the playground, which was made by a company called Landscape Structures and erected in March 2004, the Housing Authority said.
But it had not elicited complaints until this week, said Sheila Stainback, an agency spokeswoman.
Lumumba Bandele, a lecturer in black history at the City University of New York who lives nearby, said he complained about the playground to the Housing Authority and local officials last weekend.
“The fact is that this community, along with six others in New York City, makes up the majority of the prison population in New York State,” Mr. Bandele said. “And to have this here under the auspices of Nycha is absolutely insulting.”
The jungle gym, tucked behind a building near Throop and Park Avenues, sits opposite a handball court decorated with paintings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
On Sunday, the Web site Black and Brown News published a photograph of the jungle gym by Mr. Bandele’s wife, Monifa Bandele, and a critical article about it.
“There is no kind, gentle, diplomatic way to describe the offense against a community by this ‘jail playground’ on a New York City Housing Authority property,” the article began.
Some residents said that complaints about the play set were actually not a new phenomenon. One Housing Authority grounds worker who declined to give her name said her mother had been so incensed about the inscription two years ago that she covered the word “jail” with gold spray paint. It was not clear how the word came to be restored.
But on Wednesday, after the Black and Brown News article was picked up by Brownstoner and other Web sites, Housing Authority workers arrived to paint over the word “jail.” Later, another worker showed up and began permanently taking off the word “jail” and the fake bars, which appeared stenciled into the play set, with steel wool and paint remover.
The authority, Ms. Stainback said, “painted over the equipment as a temporary solution to replacing this part of the playground.” The authority is also looking into who ordered the equipment, she said.
Calls to the main office of Landscape Structures were not returned. A woman who answered the phone at one of its sales offices, in Carle Place on Long Island, said the company provided playgrounds for the Housing Authority, “but only by their approval.” She said she had never seen one of the company’s play sets adorned with the word “jail,” but emphasized, “I’m only answering the phones.”
Somewhere in the city’s public housing universe, the playground has a twin, Ms. Stainback said. She would not divulge its location, but said that its “jail” sign and bars would be painted over, too.
Playground controversies usually involve bickering parents, unruly dogs or bullies.
One exception is at the Tompkins Houses, a housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. An orange jungle gym there, adorned with a cell door, prison bars and the word “jail,” has set off outrage in the neighborhood and the blogosphere, along with a hasty official response.
Children may play cops and robbers all the time, but putting a pretend jail in a public housing playground in a historically black community struck some residents as an insult.
“We started complaining because it was like promoting kids to go to jail,” said Natasha Godley, 37, who has a 6-year-old son.
The prison look was part of the original design of the playground, which was made by a company called Landscape Structures and erected in March 2004, the Housing Authority said.
But it had not elicited complaints until this week, said Sheila Stainback, an agency spokeswoman.
Lumumba Bandele, a lecturer in black history at the City University of New York who lives nearby, said he complained about the playground to the Housing Authority and local officials last weekend.
“The fact is that this community, along with six others in New York City, makes up the majority of the prison population in New York State,” Mr. Bandele said. “And to have this here under the auspices of Nycha is absolutely insulting.”
The jungle gym, tucked behind a building near Throop and Park Avenues, sits opposite a handball court decorated with paintings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
On Sunday, the Web site Black and Brown News published a photograph of the jungle gym by Mr. Bandele’s wife, Monifa Bandele, and a critical article about it.
“There is no kind, gentle, diplomatic way to describe the offense against a community by this ‘jail playground’ on a New York City Housing Authority property,” the article began.
Some residents said that complaints about the play set were actually not a new phenomenon. One Housing Authority grounds worker who declined to give her name said her mother had been so incensed about the inscription two years ago that she covered the word “jail” with gold spray paint. It was not clear how the word came to be restored.
But on Wednesday, after the Black and Brown News article was picked up by Brownstoner and other Web sites, Housing Authority workers arrived to paint over the word “jail.” Later, another worker showed up and began permanently taking off the word “jail” and the fake bars, which appeared stenciled into the play set, with steel wool and paint remover.
The authority, Ms. Stainback said, “painted over the equipment as a temporary solution to replacing this part of the playground.” The authority is also looking into who ordered the equipment, she said.
Calls to the main office of Landscape Structures were not returned. A woman who answered the phone at one of its sales offices, in Carle Place on Long Island, said the company provided playgrounds for the Housing Authority, “but only by their approval.” She said she had never seen one of the company’s play sets adorned with the word “jail,” but emphasized, “I’m only answering the phones.”
Somewhere in the city’s public housing universe, the playground has a twin, Ms. Stainback said. She would not divulge its location, but said that its “jail” sign and bars would be painted over, too.
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