Ciccarone Park

The Daily Plant : Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Cutting The Ribbon On Ciccarone Playground

Photo by Daniel Avila

On August 23, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe joined Council Member Joel Rivera, State Senator Jeffrey Klein, State Assembly Member Jose Rivera and kids from Lady of Mt. Carmel to cut the ribbon on $2.7 million in renovations at Ciccarone Playground, located at East 188th Street and Arthur Avenue in the Belmont section of the Bronx.

Funded by allocations of $2.3 million from Mayor Bloomberg and $425,000 from Council Member Rivera, the playground features new recreation and fitness facilities, enhanced security and lighting, extensive landscaping, and newly installed utilities in the comfort station.

Ciccarone Playground has been redesigned into a unified space with a central spray shower and seating area. The park also features new play equipment for toddlers and pre-teens as well as a fitness unit, a bocce court, and game tables for adults. Plantings and landscaping around the playground’s perimeter soften the park’s edge and present an appealing image to the surrounding community, while four new entrance gates provide greater access to the playground.

"Ciccarone Playground has been the centerpiece of the Belmont neighborhood for decades," said Commissioner Benepe. "Now, it has received a complete makeover, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg and Council Member Rivera, improving the quality of life for residents young and old. Over the past five and a half years, Mayor Bloomberg has provided dramatically increased funding for rebuilding and maintaining parks and the direct result is that our City’s parks and greenspaces are flourishing like never before."

Over the past five years, Parks & Recreation has invested more than $125 million for Bronx park improvements, including new waterfront parks, greenways, and recreational facilities. Over the next five years, Parks will invest an additional $560 million to develop park projects in the Bronx, including more than $200 million from the construction of the Croton Water Filtration Plant and $98 million from Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative to establish the sustainable growth of New York City by the year 2030, which includes developing Soundview and High Bridge Parks into the Bronx’s next great, regional parks. Current major capital projects also include Ferry Point Park, Bronx Terminal Waterfront Park, and Story Playground.

Ciccarone Playground is named in honor of Italian émigré and New Yorker Vincent Ciccarone who gave his life in combat, having died on January 10, 1920 from wounds received in the Argonne Forest in 1918. It is one of nine playgrounds that were funded by the War Memorial Fund, which was established in 1921 by the New York City Police Department, and opened on July 15, 1934 under Commissioner Robert Moses.

"I always wanted to be somebody. If I made it, it's half because I was game enough to take a lot of punishment along the way and half because there were a lot of people who cared enough to help me."

(1927 – 2003)