Betsy Head Park

The Daily Plant : Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Imagination Playground Coming To Brownsville

Photo by Malcolm Pinckney

On Tuesday, April 23, NYC Parks Brooklyn Borough Commissioner Kevin Jeffrey, Marc Hacker of Rockwell Group, and City Council Member Darlene Mealy joined third and fourth graders from P.S. 323 to unveil the design for the new Imagination Playground at Betsy Head Park, located on Dumont Avenue between Hopkinson Avenue and Bristol Street in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

The playground is anticipated to begin its construction in the spring of 2014 and open in the spring of 2015. Additionally, Rockwell Group is donating a set of Imagination Playground Blocks to the Brownsville Recreation Center to enable children to experience this engaging, open-ended form of block play before the playground opens.

Imagination Playground at Betsy Head Park, a lush, tree-filled park, will be the first permanent Imagination Playground play space in Brooklyn and the second to be built worldwide. Inspired by tree houses, the park will include a multi-level space with water, sand, and loose part play areas surrounded by a long, curving play ramp that weaves through the trees and is bridged by permanent play equipment; renovated basketball and handball courts; and an exercise area for adults. A trained staff of Play Associates will be onsite to maintain and manage the loose parts during the summer.

The project was designed pro-bono by Rockwell Group to encourage creative and child-directed, unstructured free play. MKW + Associates, LLC is the landscape architect for the project. The $3.92 million playground was funded with capital allocations of $3.1 million from Council Member Mealy, $750,000 from Borough President Markowitz, and $70,000 from Mayor Bloomberg.

Imagination Playground is a play space concept conceived by Rockwell Group that inspires a wide range of play patterns, prompting creativity and sensory exploration. It allows children to physically manipulate and build their environment using loose parts, including Imagination Playground Blocks and objects from everyday life. These elements enable children to stretch their imaginations by constantly altering their environment and inventing new structures.

For more information, please visit www.imaginationplayground.com.