Washington Heights' Audubon Playground to Receive Full Reconstruction

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — A Washington Heights playground has been added to a $285 million city initiative to fully reconstruct long-overlooked parks.

Audubon Playground, on Audubon Avenue and West 170th Street, was one of nine parks selected Monday for inclusion in the Community Parks Initiative, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver announced. As a result, the playground will receive a full-scale redesign and reconstruction.

"Our small local parks are just as important our big ones and it's so great that we're seeing renewed investments in them," said Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, in a statement. "Audubon Playground is treasured by northern Manhattan residents and it is welcome news that this renovation will move forward. I want to thank Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Silver for their continued dedication to uptown parks and public space across the city."

Audubon Playground was last renovated in 1995, when the late former City Councilman Stanley Michaels provided $54,000 in funding for improvements, according to the parks department website. In the two decades following that project, the playground has gone neglected.

The Community Parks Initiative was launched in 2014 to improve historically overlooked small parks in growing neighborhoods with greater than average rates of poverty, according to the announcement. The program is funded through the mayor's office. Since selecting 35 sites for inclusion into the initiative in 2014, the program has expanded to include more parks every year, according to the announcement.

The eight other parks to receive inclusion in the Community Parks Initiative were Abraham Lincoln Playground in Harlem, Garrison Playground, Playground 174, Playground 134 and Plimpton Playground in the Bronx, La Guardia Playground and Weeksville Playground in Brooklyn and Almeda Playground in Queens.

"At its core, the Community Parks Initiative is about making good on our promise of a strong, equitable city, giving once-overlooked neighborhood parks the resources they need to become true focal points of community life," de Blasio said in a statement. "With more than 60 parks receiving full transformations – and targeted improvements and enhanced programming in more than 100 additional sites – CPI is a sustained commitment to high quality parks that serve all New Yorkers."

Photo: Google Maps street view circa May 2016