Madison Square Park

The Daily Plant : Tuesday, August 5, 2003

NEW YORKERS GIVE INPUT THROUGH PARKS SURVEY

Is your neighborhood park safe? Do you want more special events programming? Do you like your new playground design? New York City residents can now tell us about their parks online by visiting the "Contact Us" page at www.nyc.gov/parks and selecting "Fill out a Parks Survey". Our new user survey has been online since the beginning of June, with close to 400 respondents participating so far. Young and old are going online to compliment Parks & Recreation workers, highlight maintenance and security problems, or give their ideas for better programming.

Along with the online survey, we continue to host Meet the Manager Days and administer Parks surveys in person at locations throughout the city to keep informed of public opinion.

In May, Parks & Recreation held its second annual Meet the Manager program, with Park managers hosting patrons in 130 parks citywide. Through these meet and greet sessions, we have reached out to thousands of New Yorkers, with 1,110 doing short surveys in the last two years. Though too young for the surveys, hundreds of children also received Parks & Recreation frisbees, balls, and rulers - adding more fun to their park experience.

On June 25, a group of summer interns launched a two-month survey initiative that will reach each of the five boroughs. First up was Union Square Park, where over 70 surveys were completed. Parks & Recreation set up a table with surveys, Special Events calendars, and free giveaways to members of the public who stopped by to give us their feedback. The day was a great success as both visitors and residents expressed satisfaction at the newly renovated Union Square Park. Even the sun gave us approving ninety-degree weather for the day.

Since then we have surveyed in four boroughs. On July 8, 5-Boro Operations staff and interns went to Madison Square Park and St. Catherine's Park where over 130 customers participated. The following week, intern volunteers from many divisions of Parks & Recreation went to Brooklyn's Prospect, Sunset, and Red Hook Parks. Despite the rain and clouds, over 200 surveys were collected. Operations interns and staff tackled Staten Island’s Clove Lakes Park and the Bronx’s St. Mary’s Park during the week of July 28. The St. Mary’s team broke the all time record by coming home with 102 surveys collected in one park. So far, over 1,538 park surveys have been tabulated, and the program is growing.

Park & Recreation Surveys are opening up a new way for the public to communicate about parks and to express their priorities and concerns. Thanks to Susan Friedman, Lofton Johnson, and interns Miriam Petersen and Ian Shin, and all our interns for their help, to Sherry Lee who is coordinating this initiative, and to Leslie Nusblatt, Parks & Recreation’s Intern Coordinator.