The Voice of New Rochelle: Parks and Parking Lots

Whenever I pass by a ball field or a playground and no one is playing there I want to run out on the infield grass or the pitcher’s mound and throw or hit a baseball.  More alarmingly, I want to go out and claim the field for me and my friends. So strong is this urge that I honestly forget that I am 61 years old and my baseball days are decades behind me. 

It’s like the millionaire who can’t forget what it was like to be poor and still collects coupons before going to the supermarket. 

Do you, my semi-suburban brothers and sisters, realize what you have in your parks and ball fields? Did you ever ask yourselves why such a large portion of people going to Rye Playland are from the more inner-city parts of Westchester and the Bronx? Are you aware that you complain about the condition of your recreation areas in ways that make city folk shake their heads?

Let’s, for a moment, go back to that baseball field I just claimed for my buddies. For us city kids, the chances are that following a five- or two-mile walk, or a longer bus ride, to the Parade Grounds or Prospect Park—the two ball fields within accessible distance—the only way we could get the baseball diamond was to challenge whoever was on it to a game. 

It was accepted practice that we could challenge the winners. When you finally got on the field, you too had to face all comers. If made you a better ballplayer and you appreciated the access.

So desperate were we for space that we virtually invented the game of softball on concrete in parking lots. Fortunately for us, the transfer of shipping from the Brooklyn docks to Newark freed up the parking lots of the Bull Lines which became a major hub of softball leagues. I must have been 20 years old when I realized the Bull Lines was an ocean-going freight line.

We also did not have any coaches or uniforms. Think Charlie Brown and his buddies. 

Later on most of the better players got on school or sandlot teams, but even after that, we never gave up going to just play baseball or softball.

I bet you also didn’t know that for us going on a picnic meant coming up here to Westchester or down to Jersey and making an entire day of it. It wasn’t worth the trip to go just for a couple of hours. God, how we would have filled your parks with love and music on the weekends, if we had them.  

Take a look around you. Really, take a look. One of my favorite parks here is Hudson Park. It has it all, the waterfront included, yet it is also a target of critics for not being the way it was 40 years ago.

Another target is Playland. Yes, I agree it should not be owned by the county. Indeed, its great irony is also that it is more appreciated by city folks who have nothing like it down home. 

When I was a kid our favorite bus-ride destination was “Rye Beach,” which is what we called it then. I suspect that other than for the revenue, you were no more too happy to see us here, than you are today to host the current inner-city patrons.

Anyway, please look around you. Look hard. In these financial hard times, don’t give the suits an excuse to save money by taking money away your parks and playgrounds. 

Unless you really don’t care, then it makes sense to cut their budgets. But, please, take me at my word, you will miss them when they are gone.