Betsy Head Park is a
public park
An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to re ...
in the
Brownsville neighborhood of
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. The park occupies two non-contiguous plots diagonally across from each other at the intersection of Dumont Avenue and Thomas S. Boyland Street, covering a collective . The modern-day park contains a playground, a swimming complex, and fields for baseball, football, tennis, and basketball. The park's swimming complex, the Betsy Head Play Center, was designed by
Ely Jacques Kahn
Ely Jacques Kahn (June 1, 1884September 5, 1972) was an American commercial architect who designed numerous skyscrapers in New York City in the twentieth century. In addition to buildings intended for commercial use, Kahn's designs ranged throug ...
and consists of a bathhouse, a general swimming pool, and an infilled diving pool. The park is operated by the
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...
, also known as NYC Parks.
The construction of the park was funded by Betsy Head, a rich Briton who died in 1907. Plans for Betsy Head Park were completed in 1914 by
Henry Beaumont Herts
Henry Beaumont Herts (January 23, 1871 – March 27, 1933) was an American architect.
Herts was born in New York City, attended Columbia University without graduating, and apprenticed under Bruce Price. He studied architecture in Europe at th ...
, and the park opened on September 30, 1915, with a bathhouse and a pool complex. The current
Art Moderne
Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...
style pool was built by
Aymar Embury II
Aymar Embury II (June 15, 1880 – November 15, 1966) was an American architect. He is best known for commissions from the City of New York from the 1930s through to the 1950s. In this period, Embury frequently worked with Robert Moses in t ...
and
John Matthews Hatton during a
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
project in 1935–1936. The bathhouse was not originally set to be renovated, unlike at other city parks with large pools, but it was rebuilt following a 1937 fire. The park's facilities were renovated from 1979 to 1983 and again in the late 2010s. The Betsy Head Play Center was designated as a landmark by the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...
in 2008.
Recreation fields
Betsy Head Park is in two non-contiguous plots of unequal size, diagonally across the intersection of Dumont Avenue and Thomas S. Boyland Street.
The park's recreational facilities include three
baseball field
A baseball field, also called a ball field or baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term can also be used as a metonym for a baseball park. The term sandlot is sometimes used, although this usually refers ...
s, two
football fields, eight
tennis court
A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be u ...
s, and six
basketball court
In basketball, the basketball court is the playing surface, consisting of a rectangular floor, with baskets at each end. Indoor basketball courts are almost always made of polished wood, usually maple, with -high rims on each basket. Outdoor sur ...
s. The football fields and four of the basketball courts overlap with the baseball fields and cannot be utilized when the baseball field is in use.
The larger plot, at the southwestern corner of Dumont Avenue and Thomas S. Boyland Street, measures
and is bounded by Thomas S. Boyland Street to the east, Dumont Avenue to the north, Livonia Avenue to the south, and Strauss Street to the west.
The plot measures along the western and eastern boundaries and on the northern and southern boundaries. It occupies three typical city blocks.
Before 2021, the western two-thirds of the larger plot contained two baseball fields, an overlapping football field, and eight handball courts and one basketball court on the southern border of the plot.
In 2021, four of the handball courts were replaced with a full basketball court, and two handball courts were built in another part of the plot.
A four-lane running track and a synthetic turf field were also added during the 2021 renovation, within what was previously the baseball and football field.
A smaller plot exists at the northeastern corner of Dumont Avenue and Thomas S. Boyland Street. This plot, measuring ,
is bounded by Blake Avenue to the north, Bristol Street to the east, Dumont Avenue to the south, and Thomas S. Boyland Street to the west.
The plot measures along the western and eastern boundaries and on the northern and southern boundaries. It occupies one typical city block.
Before 2021, this section of the park contained another baseball field with overlapping football field and four overlapping basketball courts; one non-overlapping basketball court; and four tennis courts.
One early feature in the smaller plot was a farmhouse and rest station with a "model kitchen", which in turn was adjacent to a small
urban farm
Urban agriculture, urban farming, or urban gardening is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around urban areas. It encompasses a complex and diverse mix of food production activities, including fisheries and fo ...
with 500 plots for schoolchildren to tend.
During the 2021 renovation, a skate park, parkour course, and event area was added.
Betsy Head Play Center
Original facilities
The original facilities were modeled after
Armour Square Park
Armour Square Park, also known as Armour Square or Park No. 3, is a park in Chicago, Illinois featuring Beaux Arts architecture, designed by D.H. Burnham and the Olmsted Brothers. The park was opened in March 1905, at a cost of $220,000. It was n ...
in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
.
The western two-thirds of Betsy Head Park's larger southwestern section was originally designed with a 15,000-to-20,000-capacity stadium containing a
running track
An all-weather running track is a rubberized, artificial running surface for track and field athletics. It provides a consistent surface for competitors to test their athletic ability unencumbered by adverse weather conditions. Historically, v ...
. A two-story
field house
Field house or fieldhouse is an American English term for an indoor sports arena or stadium, mostly used for college basketball, volleyball, or ice hockey, or a support building for various adjacent sports fields, e.g. locker room, team room, coac ...
, measuring , was just east of the stadium. The field house contained restroom facilities on the ground floor, and 25 club-rooms and 25 lockers on the second floor,
as well as space for special events.
Gymnasiums for men and women were to the north and south of the field house, each with numerous indoor recreation facilities for basketball, handball, tennis, and other sports.
The eastern third of the park's southwestern section contained a swimming pool and bathhouse. The original swimming pool was described as being with the long edge being parallel to the eastern boundary of the park's larger plot. The original bath building was composed of two portions, one wing each to the north and south, just east of the swimming pool. The bathhouse could accommodate 400 people per hour or 4,000 per day, and a boiler room and towel room was in the basement.
Current modernist design
The replacement bathhouse was designed in the
Art Moderne
Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...
style, similar to the
Astoria Play Center
Astoria Park is a public park in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City. The park is situated on the eastern shore of the Hell Gate, a strait of the East River, between Ditmars Boulevard to the north and Hoyt Avenue to the south. ...
, in
Astoria, Queens
Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast ...
.
The building was upheld by the architect
Ely Jacques Kahn
Ely Jacques Kahn (June 1, 1884September 5, 1972) was an American commercial architect who designed numerous skyscrapers in New York City in the twentieth century. In addition to buildings intended for commercial use, Kahn's designs ranged throug ...
as being "above all...intended for enjoyable use",
while parks commissioner
Robert Moses
Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...
called its plans "better than that adopted in any of the existing pools".
On the other hand, Embury, known to be a traditionalist in his designs, criticized the style. He once said of
modernist architects
Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form ...
: "They leave off all ornamentation because, they say, the ornaments do not aid the structure to do its job."
Architectural historian
Robert A. M. Stern
Robert Arthur Morton Stern, usually credited as Robert A. M. Stern (born May 23, 1939), is a New York City–based architect, educator, and author. He is the founding partner of the architecture firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, also known a ...
said the Betsy Head Play Center was "perhaps the most inventive and most
overtly Modernist structure" of the WPA bathhouses erected by the New York City government.
Unlike its counterparts around the city, the Betsy Head Play Center never contained a wading pool. It included a main swimming pool, as well as a diving pool that was later filled in.
Bathhouse
The bathhouse is in Betsy Head Park's southwestern section, with its main entrance along Thomas S. Boyland Street to the east. The eastern
facade consists mostly of
glass-bricked walls set into a bonded brick wall, which correspond to the walls of the locker rooms inside. Stone
coping
Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social.
Theories of coping
Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to ...
is at the bottom and top of the facade, and a metal railing is above the stone coping at the top, serving as the handrail for the rooftop deck.
[ The facade was built with materials that could not be easily stolen.] The central section of the facade contains the building's main entrance, which is flanked by a curving glass brick wall on either side, and is accessed by a flight of four steps and a wheelchair ramp on the northern side of the steps. The western facade, adjacent to the pool, is similar to the eastern facade, but has two steps up from the pool area to the lobby. The curving glass wall on the northern side of the western facade was replaced for the installation of an elevator
An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...
, and a wheelchair ramp extends along the southern half of the western facade.
The lobby is in the central section of the bathhouse, separating the men's and women's locker rooms to the north and south, respectively. There are no walls or doorways to the west or east, allowing the facade to be lit naturally. Rather, roll-down metal gates are across the western and eastern entrances. The lobby contains a bluestone-tiled floor, while the white-plaster ceiling contains stepped concentric squares, with the innermost squares being slightly higher. A circular brick column rises through the center of the lobby. A ticket booth was in the lobby, but is no longer operational, as the pool and bathhouse are free to use. There are plaster-and-marble walls separating the lobby from each locker room and various smaller rooms such as the office area to the south and the first-aid room to the north. Above the doorways to each room are Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
-style letters indicating the room's purpose, such as the words "MEN" and "WOMEN" above the respective genders' locker rooms. There are metal double-doors leading to each of the locker room areas.
The locker rooms contained several hundred lockers each and are outfitted with concrete floors and brick-with-terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, a ...
walls. The locker rooms are designed with waterproof stepped ceilings similar to the lobby, and as a result, the acoustic quality of the locker rooms is weak. During winters, each locker room could be converted to gym facilities for each gender. The identical shower rooms, at the opposite end of the locker rooms, also contain entrances from the pool area to the west. The pool entrances are recessed into the building, and are flanked by curved walls with cinder blocks that are designed similarly to the original glass blocks. The letters "MEN" and "WOMEN" are also above these entrances.
Above the building is a rooftop observation deck, accessed by stairs to the south and north of the bathhouse. The deck was shaded by a canopy supported by eight metal-clad parabolic arch
A parabolic arch is an arch in the shape of a parabola.Article about parabolic arch by The Free DictionaryParabolic arch , Article about parabolic arch by The Free Dictionary accessdate: March 2, 2017 In structures, their curve represents an effi ...
es, and there were concrete bleachers underneath the canopy.[ The roof is closed to the public.]
Pool
The pool area is west of the bathhouse, taking up much of the block between Livonia Avenue to the south and Dumont Avenue to the north. The main pool is rectangular, measuring with the longer axis running north–south,[ and has a depth of .] A cement deck surrounds the pool and is encircled by a chain link fence. Two small islands are in the center of the pool and contain triangular-capped filtration
Filtration is a physical separation process that separates solid matter and fluid from a mixture using a ''filter medium'' that has a complex structure through which only the fluid can pass. Solid particles that cannot pass through the filter ...
systems. Until the pool was renovated in the early 1980s, these islands contained fountain
A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or Spring (hydrology), spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. ...
s.
The diving pool was south of the main pool. After it was infilled in 2005–2006, the space has contained a volleyball court. A storage area used by NYC Parks is on the east side of the pool area.
Concrete bleachers, along with a filter house, were on the southern side of the pool area adjacent to the volleyball court. The concrete bleachers were built with the original bathhouse in 1917 and were surrounded by a wall made of Flemish bond brick. The space underneath the bleachers contained five circular windows facing toward Livonia Avenue to the south. The bleacher was replaced with a new entrance in 2021. A two-story brick filter house is to the west and contains a metal doorway and short flight of steps that leads to Livonia Avenue. The former bleachers and filter house area are surrounded by a chain link fence.
History
Early history
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brownsville was a densely populated Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
neighborhood. An estimated 25,000 people lived in Brownsville by 1900, many of whom lived in severely overcrowded tenements. The neighborhood had little open space, and a local group, the Hebrew Educational Society, recommended the establishment of a public park within Brownsville. Furthermore, Brooklyn in general had very few playgrounds: by the time Betsy Head Park was approved in 1913, there were only eight playgrounds in Brooklyn.
Betsy Head, a rich Briton, died in 1907. Head's $365,000 estate () was divided almost equally between facilities for New York City parks and various city charities; Head's daughter received only $5 (), as she disliked that her daughter had married a foreman. As part of Head's will, $190,000 () was allocated to New York City park facilities. The sum allocated to Betsy Head Park in Brooklyn was originally allocated for a park of the same name at Corlears Hook
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an i ...
in the Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
. The money was never used for this purpose, so in early 1913 some Brownsville residents asked the New York City Comptroller
The Office of Comptroller of New York City, a position established in 1801, is the chief financial officer and chief auditor of the city agencies and their performance and spending. The comptroller also reviews all city contracts, handles the s ...
, William A. Prendergast
William Ambrose Prendergast (May 25, 1867 – June 20, 1954) was an American businessman and politician from New York.
Life
Prendergast was born on May 25, 1867, in the East Side of New York City, New York, the son of Irish immigrants Lawr ...
, for the use of the funds for their own park. This caused controversy, as the land under the proposed park would be funded by a tax paid by landowners in the surrounding community, some of whom opposed paying said tax. In July 1913, the city approved the acquisition of the parkland. The land under the Betsy Head Playground was purchased for $240,000 () and paid-for by Brownsville landowners living within of the site. The playground's facilities were funded by the estate of Betsy Head.
Plans for Betsy Head Park were completed in May 1914 by Henry Beaumont Herts
Henry Beaumont Herts (January 23, 1871 – March 27, 1933) was an American architect.
Herts was born in New York City, attended Columbia University without graduating, and apprenticed under Bruce Price. He studied architecture in Europe at th ...
, who proposed to include numerous facilities in each section of the park. The larger section would be composed of wading and swimming pools, a bathhouse, a running track, and tennis courts. The smaller section would comprise an administration building, a rest pavilion, a playground, and a garden for schoolchildren. This would help make Betsy Head Park into "one of the finest in the world". Betsy Head Park opened on September 30, 1915. The park contained a stadium with a running track, and a two-story field house with capacity for 4,000 people per day. As the only play area in the neighborhood, it was "overcrowded" upon opening. In the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition
The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely se ...
, Betsy Head Park's design received first prize in the New York City Parks portion of the competition.
Works Progress Administration renovation
In 1934, mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City fro ...
nominated Robert Moses
Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...
to become commissioner of a unified New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...
. At the time, the United States was experiencing the Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
; immediately after La Guardia won the 1933 election, Moses began to write "a plan for putting 80,000 men to work on 1,700 relief projects". By the time he was in office, several hundred such projects were underway across the city.
Moses was especially interested in creating new pools and other bathing facilities, such as those in Jacob Riis Park
Jacob Riis Park, also called Jacob A. Riis Park and Riis Park, is a seaside park on the southwestern portion of the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It lies at the foot of the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Brid ...
, Jones Beach, and Orchard Beach. He devised a list of 23 pools around the city, including one at Betsy Head Park. The pools would be built using funds from the Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
(WPA), a federal agency created as part of the New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
to combat the Depression's negative effects. Eleven of these pools were to be designed concurrently and open in 1936. Moses, along with architects Aymar Embury II
Aymar Embury II (June 15, 1880 – November 15, 1966) was an American architect. He is best known for commissions from the City of New York from the 1930s through to the 1950s. In this period, Embury frequently worked with Robert Moses in t ...
and Gilmore David Clarke
Gilmore David Clarke (July 12, 1892 – August 8, 1982''New York Times'', August 10, 1982, p. B19: Gilmore D. Clarke, 90, is dead; designed major public works'.) was an American civil engineer and landscape architect who designed many park ...
, created a common design for these proposed aquatic centers. Each location was to have distinct pools for diving, swimming, and wading; bleachers and viewing areas; and bathhouses with locker rooms that could be used as gymnasiums. The pools were to have several common features, such as a minimum length, underwater lighting, heating, filtration, and low-cost construction materials. To fit the requirement for cheap materials, each building would be built using elements of the Streamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...
and Classical architectural styles. The buildings would also be near "comfort stations", additional playgrounds, and spruced-up landscapes.
Construction for some of the 11 pools began in October 1934. Even though there was already a pool at Betsy Head Park, Moses described its existing pool facilities as "an antiquated tank" that contained no filtration facilities; he proposed to refurbish it entirely as part of the WPA initiative. The existing field house largely remained intact, except for some modifications to make way for an enlarged pool. The field house's lockers were replaced by baskets, and its interior was expanded so that 4,660 bathers per day could use the facilities, rather than 4,000. By mid-1936, ten of the eleven WPA-funded pools were completed and were being opened at a rate of one per week. Except for the Betsy Head Pool, each opening featured elaborate performances attended by La Guardia. Betsy Head Park's pool was the ninth to open citywide. On August 7, 1936, Betsy Head Park's pool area opened without any ceremony or the mayor in attendance; over eight hundred children spread the news of the opening by word of mouth. The opening was arranged at the last minute, and the diving and wading pools were not yet complete.
In September 1936, work started on converting the main pool to winter use, with workers temporarily draining the pool and adding basketball, handball, shuffleboard, tennis, and volleyball facilities. The original bathhouse was destroyed by fire on August 17, 1937, and the pool was closed for the rest of the season. Park commissioner Moses's letter to La Guardia, addressed three days later, advocated for the total replacement of the bathhouse. The pool area was reopened for the 1938 season, with a temporary one-story structure that housed the showers. The current one-story bathhouse was opened on May 27, 1939. By 1941, the other athletic facilities in the larger southwestern portion of the park were nearly complete.
A new indoor playground in Betsy Head Park, to serve as a community recreation center during the winter, was announced in May 1948 and was supposed to begin the next year. However, by mid-1949 construction still had not started. A running track was opened at Betsy Head Park in 1952, one of eighteen opened citywide. The rest of the indoor Betsy Head Recreation Center was removed from the NYC Parks budget, and the money was instead allocated to the Brownsville Boys Club, which the city acquired in 1954. In the mid-20th century, Brownsville became a mostly African American neighborhood, and Betsy Head Park's patrons came to include boxer Riddick Bowe
Riddick Lamont Bowe (born August 10, 1967) is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1989 and 2008. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion in 1992, and as an amateur he won a silver medal in the super heavyw ...
, who lived in Brownsville. Despite segregation being present at comparable facilities at the time, African American and white children and adults used the facilities without any conflict.
Decline and renovations
Over the years, multiple children and young adults have drowned at Betsy Head Pool. For instance, a 7-year-old boy drowned in 1947, and a 4-year-old boy also drowned in 1988. A third child, a 4-year-old girl drowned in the pool in 1995, despite the presence of ten lifeguards. The drowning of the 4-year-old girl resulted in greater scrutiny, especially due to the lack of lifeguards around the pool, and resulted in the implementation of more stringent rules the following season, wherein kids under a certain height had to be accompanied by guardians. In 1999, an 18-year-old woman also drowned in the pool.
By the 1970s, Betsy Head Park and other city parks were in poor condition following the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, and were widely seen as being unsafe. NYC Parks commenced a project to restore the pools in several parks in 1977, including at Betsy Head Park. In 1979, the agency set aside an estimated $5.2 million for the restoration of Betsy Head Park. The renovation of Betsy Head Park was approved in January 1981, despite a shortage of employees in general across the NYC Parks system. The diving and swimming pools were rebuilt, the bathhouse was retrofitted with handicapped-accessible locker rooms, and the other recreational facilities in Betsy Head Park were rebuilt. The reconstructed park reopened on June 28, 1983.
NYC Parks continued to face financial shortfalls in the coming years, and the pools retained a reputation for high crime. For the summer of 1991, mayor David Dinkins
David Norman Dinkins (July 10, 1927 – November 23, 2020) was an American politician, lawyer, and author who served as the 106th mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1993. He was the first African American to hold the office.
Before enterin ...
had planned to close all 32 outdoor pools in the city, a decision that was only reversed after a $2 million donation from a trust created upon the death of real estate developer Sol Goldman
Sol Goldman (born Usher Selig Goldman, September 2, 1917 – October 18, 1987) was an American real estate investor and philanthropist. Goldman was the founder of Solil Management, a real estate investment firm he founded in the 1950s with his ...
and $1.8 million from other sources. To prevent nighttime trespassing, NYC Parks added a heavy steel fence in 1993, which was attached to the existing chain-link fence
A chain-link fence (also referred to as wire netting, wire-mesh fence, chain-wire fence, cyclone fence, hurricane fence, or diamond-mesh fence) is a type of woven fence usually made from galvanized or linear low-density polyethylene-coated st ...
around the pool. Additionally, in the 1990s, a practice called "whirlpooling" became common in New York City pools such as Betsy Head Park, wherein women would be inappropriately fondled by teenage boys. By the beginning of the 21st century, crimes such as sexual assaults had decreased in parks citywide due to increased security. In 2008, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...
designated the Betsy Head Play Center a landmark, making it the first individual landmark in Brownsville. The commission had previously considered the pool for landmark status in 1990, along with the other ten WPA pools in the city.
Prototype designs for the construction of Betsy Head Playground were unveiled in 2009. The Rockwell Group Rockwell may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Rockwell'' (album), a 2009 mini-album by Anni Rossi
* Rockwell, a fictional town and setting of ''They Hunger''
* ''Rockwell'', a 1994 film about Porter Rockwell
* Rockwell, Maine, a f ...
was selected to design the play area. In early 2016, the playground inside the park was renovated for $5.05 million, with an "Imagination Playground" surrounded by a wooden pathway. The new play area, which features movable foam play blocks, is based on the group's Burling Slip playground in Lower Manhattan. Later that year, $30 million was allocated for further improvements to the park's recreational facilities as part of the city's Anchor Parks program. Work on these improvements commenced in 2019. The first phase of the renovation, consisting of renovations to the playground and adjacent recreational areas, was finished in June 2020 for $7 million. The second phase, composed of further recreational additions, was completed in April 2021 for $23 million, though some improvements were not completed until early 2022.
See also
* List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), formed in 1965, is the New York City governmental commission that administers the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. Since its founding, it has designated over a thousand landmarks, classi ...
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
*
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External links
*
{{Protected areas of New York City
1915 establishments in New York City
Brownsville, Brooklyn
New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn
Parks in Brooklyn
Protected areas established in 1915
Robert Moses projects
Urban public parks
Works Progress Administration in New York City
Art Moderne architecture
Art Deco architecture in Brooklyn