It’s the future of hydration!
The Parks Department is installing a futuristic new water fountain at Jacob Joffe Fields that can fill water bottles and recreationists’ bellies at the same time. The font (inset below) will be equipped with three water spouts — two will look like typical water fountains, but the third is specially designed for filling water bottles. Prospect Park has had such hydration stations since 2013, and the wells are an exciting but out-of-left-field addition to the Flatlands park, said one old-school hydrator.
“I haven’t seen that before,” said Community Board 18 member James Buchanan. “That’s very unusual.”
The regular-mouth-piece fountains will be low enough for wheel-chair users to reach, but the bottle-filler will let water run vertically, so it can drop straight into a canteen and thirsty park-goers don’t have to hold their bottle at an awkward angle like typical fountains, according to a Parks Department designer.
The city will fit the park with new fillers as part of a larger renovation, which includes new adult fitness equipment and fixed-up handball and basketball courts. The department aims to reconstruct the blacktop so that the park will have two full-sized ball courts instead of six miscellaneous hoops, said a Parks Department spokesman. The goal was a net reduction in hoops and an increase in courts, he said.
“We’ve eliminated not courts, but hoops,” the spokesman said. “There weren’t full courts — not even half-courts. The goal was to have two fully functional courts.”
Community Board 18 unanimously supported designs for the Avenue K park, which sits between 58th and 59th streets, in a 28–0 vote on May 18.
The city expects the $900,000 project, funded by Councilman Alan Maisel (D–Marine Park), to take 18 months to complete but hasn’t settled on a date to break ground, a spokesman said.
