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We blew it on the last park, but the next one will be awesome.
That’s the message Brooklyn Bridge Park development officials gave on Wednesday night when they admitted that there were several “mistakes” in planning the kiddy playground on Pier 1 — the one that featured the large metalic orbs that got so hot in the sun that kids got burned.
“There are always mistakes, even with an agency as experienced as ours,” Parks Department spokesman Joshua Laird told Community Board 6. “Developers should be held accountable for their response to problems. I think they responded quickly.”
Laird was referring to workers, who fanned out to install movable tents above the domes to keep them cool. But that stopgap measure, and the subsequent admission of error, comes weeks after a young girl busted her face on one of the steel domes in the small, $800,000 playground inside Pier 1 at the foot of Old Fulton Street.
Earlier, parents complained that the domes were burning their children.
The injuries started a whirlwind of controversy for the Empire State Development Corporation, which had turned the corner on the long-delayed park development project with the March opening of the first segment of the $350-million strip of green from DUMBO to Atlantic Avenue.
At the meeting, some community members criticized the kiddy park and its surrounding green space on Pier 1 for being too small and, yes, boring for their offspring. But officials said they’re just getting started — and that the new playground opening on Pier 6 near the foot of Atlantic Avenue later this spring will be fantastic.
“The one on Pier 1 is not our major playground — it’s meant for very small children,” said Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation President Regina Myer. “The one on Pier 6 will be expansive, with swings, slides, a sandbox, and even a water play area.”
The new playground promises more excitement. The huge sandbox comes with a kid-sized train and plastic animals to ride. There will be two steel — yes, steel again — slides, one of which careens through rocks at the pier’s entrance. There are also some modern, colorful jungle-gym contraptions for the expert climbers.
©2010 Community Newspaper Group
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