Groundbreaking ceremony for new playground at P.S. 84Q (Council Member Costa Constantinides Twitter)
Dec. 18, 2019 By Allie Griffin
Queens community leaders broke ground on a new $1.5 million student-designed playground at P.S. 84Q in Astoria Monday.
The new green playground, scheduled to open in the fall of 2020, has been designed by students who have learned skills like budgeting, negotiation and planning in the process.
At the groundbreaking ceremony Monday morning, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, Council Member Costa Constantinides and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Vincent Sapienza joined the school community and representatives of the Trust for Public Land, which initiated the building of the new green playground.
The playground will include a running track, turf field, two play equipment areas, basketball hoops, game tables, benches, an amphitheater, an outdoor classroom and green infrastructure elements like permeable pavers and specifically chosen plantings and trees.
The new playground at P.S. 84Q, located at 22-45 41st St, will also be open to the public during select after school hours.
It is being built through The Trust for Public Land’s New York City Playgrounds Program — which has designed and/or built more than 200 school and community playgrounds across the five boroughs.
“This new playground will transform a former barren asphalt lot into a vibrant green space that will benefit P.S 84 students and the larger Astoria community,” said Carter Strickland, New York State Director for The Trust for Public Land.
Council Member Constantinides, an alumni of the school, helped secure funding to construct the new playground.
“As a P.S. 84 alumni and a neighbor who grew up just across the street from this school, I have many fond memories of this outdoor space,” Constantinides said. “From throwing around a football to chasing baseballs hit into the street, this schoolyard was a place of happiness and I’m incredibly proud to have helped make the investment to transform this concrete lot into a vibrant green open space that will better serve P.S. 84 and the larger northern Astoria community.”
The new playground is the result of a partnership with the New York City Department of Education, the DEP and the School Construction Authority. Queens Borough President Katz also helped secure funding.
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10 Comments
What about affordable housing and more practical use of money.
No need for that..we can all sleep in the park
Hopefully they do a better job than with the Sean’s Place renovation.
I have a home but enjoying peeing in the parks to show support for the homeless. Athens Square Park is hosting it’s 3rd annual Pee in this Sun. You and I pee alongside homeless legends, Sgt Sesame, Always Silent, BigBearded ,Black Dude. (Sleeping in open apt hallway near you) And the legend, For years he sat on a crate outside Crown. He was a charming, jokestar. “Want to get Married, I got Food Stamps!” KEMAL!
And yet we still have not a single dog park anywhere in central Astoria.
It will be a great place for all the new homeless people in Astoria to sleep and pee !
$1.5 Million!? Why does it cost that much!? Why would you introduce an expensive playground in the middle of a residential area already tight on parking!? Who signed off on this nonsense!?
So the residents have a place to do something other than park their cars. And unless you have any concept on how much things cost (material & labor) you should probably stick to airing ignorant comments to yourself.
^ Triggered by a meaningless internet post.
Costa’s percentage is pretty high so the markup is pretty steep