Greencroft Playground

What was here before?

Present-day Bay Terrace was largely undeveloped until the late 1950s. The area is now largely residential and populated with single-family homes.

How did this site become a playground?

This site was selected for park and recreation purposes by the Site Selection Board of New York City in 1963 and opened in 1970. This playground is a Jointly Operated Playground (JOP) serving P.S. 53, The Barbara Esselborn School, and the local community. Beginning in 1938, the Board of Education (now the Department of Education) agreed to provide land next to schools where NYC Parks could build and maintain playgrounds that could be used by the school during the day and by the public when school is not in session.

The large space allowed for many features, including a junior baseball diamond, a basketball court, a public restroom, a children’s adventure-style play area, grassy slopes, and a grove sitting area. The playground was restored in 1996 as part of the Playgrounds ’96 project, a citywide effort to upgrade the neediest playgrounds in the five boroughs. During that renovation, safety surfacing and new play equipment was installed, and the basketball courts were refurbished. In 2021 the existing public restroom was demolished, to be replaced by a new one in 2022.

What is this playground named for?

Greencroft Playground takes its name from its southwestern border, Greencroft Street. The word green-croft is a pastoral term, from the Dutch word croft for family farm, kitchen garden, or a very small pasture. When the neighborhood of Bay Terrace was laid out in the mid-20th century, the developers presumably wished to give the newly suburban streets appealing names, reminiscent of the area’s farming past.