PARKS & WRECK
Padlocked playgrounds busted open again Blaz, Jewish group feud over distancing rules
Defying coronavirus safety protocols, a group of Hasidic Jews cut the lock off Kolbert Playground in Midwood, Brooklyn, Tuesday, allowing men (inset) to play cards and children to scamper about.
Dozens of defiant parents and children fed up with the coronavirus quarantine took back several parks and playgrounds in Brooklyn Tuesday after rebellious community leaders and elected officials cut the locks and chains on gates that had kept them closed for months.
Frustrated up families in Midwood’s Orthodox community flouted the state’s stay-out order in an all-out mutiny, liberating the longempty parks without fear of disease or consequence.
“It was tough with the three kids,” said a mother named Anna, as her kids ate ice cream and defied gravity on the swings at Kolbert Playground at Avenue L and E. 17th St. “It was hard to shelter in place. You lose your mind. This crisis takes a lot of everything and everyone.”
Hours earlier, beside a bright red sign that said, “Playground closed” in capital letters, local leaders used a hand saw to cut through a lock and thick chain that had kept the park’s iron gates closed.
“Welcome to our park everybody!” a man shouts on a video chronicling the reopening. “Come on in. And we’re going to open every single park in the city. Come on in, no matter if you’re Jewish or not. Come on in guys.”
A short time later, chains were cut off the gates at Dome Playground in Borough Park.
Local lawmakers had warned they would take matters into their own hands, calling the continued closure a “nonsensical policy” rooted in a double standard that allows crowded police brutality protests but frowns on games of tag in city playgrounds. New York City playgrounds have remained closed even as the city has eased into Phase 1, the first step to reopening in a postcoronavirus world.
“The people have spoken and they are sick and tired of being ignored,” state Sen. Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein and City Councilman Kalman Yeger said in a statement.
“With everything going on in the world, why is our mayor intent on making criminals of mothers and children in need of a safe space to play? If they lock these gates, we will cut them open again tomorrow, because we serve the people. Who do you serve, Mr. Mayor?”
Mayor de Blasio talked tough on Tuesday while scolding the city park scofflaws, but there appeared to be no enforcement of the directive that had kept the playgrounds closed.
“We’re not going to allow people to take the law into their own hands,” de Blasio told reporters. “It just doesn’t work. People are not allowed to open up a playground that’s not yet available to the public.”
The NYPD took even less of a stand and passed the buck to a different city agency.
“We are aware of the incident,” said Detective Annette Shelton, an NYPD spokeswoman. “Please be referred to the Parks Department.”
The liberation of Kolbert Playground and Dome Play
ground followed the forced reopening of Middleton Playground in Williamsburg on Monday. Members of the community there used bolt cutters to open the gate, which had been welded shut.
The lock at Middleton had already been snipped some 25 times. Workers arrived and installed a chain, which was promptly cut again Monday night.
The open defiance set off a round of reaction on social media.
“Protesters are wearing masks,” said one person on Twitter. “Opening up parks and not wearing masks (as seen in the video) so little johnny can run around only helps a kid and a selfish parent/guardian.”
Another user was more upset.
“If this was in a black neighborhood the SWAT team woulda showed up,” the writer tweeted.
But parents in the park Tuesday were more than pleased to celebrate a day without coronavirus confinement.
A father named John, 45, who came to Kolbert with his 3-year-old son, said he wonders what took so long.
“I’m livid because we had to wait this long to get our park open, and it took people getting angry to get it open,” he said. “What was the point of keeping it closed? I think they wanted to show they have power over other people.”
“It’s about time they open the park,” said Sergei Noshelov, who played cards with a group of older men. “People were sitting outside and the kids were running into the road. It doesn’t matter. It’s better for the children so they don’t run into the street.”
Gov. Cuomo closed playgrounds April 1, but later said it was up to individual cities to decide when to reopen them. On Tuesday, he underscored that municipalities can choose when to make the playgrounds public again.
“If you have a dispute among local officials in New York they should sit down and figure it out,” he said. “It’s up to the local government.”
De Blasio said despite people’s frustration, he plans to preserve the playground lock down at least until June 22 to prevent a spike in the spread of the potentially deadly virus, or at least until the second phase of reopening is slated to begin.