A PLACE TO PLAY
Work on new playground begins
GREEN ISLAND, N.Y. » Children living in the village will soon have a new and improved playground with work finishing up at the Paine Street Park.
Thanks to a $125,000 legislative initiative grant from Assemblyman John McDonald III, D- Cohoes, village officials were able to replace the old and outdated playground inside of Paine Street Park.
Work began to replace the old playground with new and improved equipment last week with the intentions of it only being a four day project, however, the significant amounts of rain over the past week have delayed the process. Officials expect the playground to be finished and ready to play on by the end of the week now.
“This meets the new playground safety regulations, the old playground didn’t meet all of the codes, it wasn’t unsafe, but the codes have changed over the years,” said Sean Ward, executive assistant to village Mayor Ellen McNultyRyan. “The original wooden structure [playground] was installed in 1993 and it has gotten a lot of use over the years and is a very popular playground and now we’re going to have a more up to date and ADA compliant playground for the residents to use.”
“We’re just really excited to have a fun, safe place for the kids in Green Island to play,” said Maggie Alix, director of parks and recreation. “I’m just looking forward to seeing all of the kids play on it, bringing laughter and some enjoyment to the community.”
Officials said that the ADA compliant part of the playground is important to have, so that residents of all abilities can enjoy the playground. The ADA compliant aspects of the playground will include things like handicap swings along with a ramp going into the playground for wheelchairs access.
“This will meet all of the new requirements and it will be accessible to anybody,” said Ward, who noted that the Paine Street Park is the only park in the village with a playground. “It’s definitely used by a large segment of the population.”
“We also have a [summer] lunch program [at Paine Street Park] and they feed over 100 a kids a day,” added McNultyRyan.
Village officials said that they are thankful that they were able to receive this type of grant funding for the playground project since they believe it will be beneficial for the community for many years.
“We wouldn’t have [ been able to do this without the grant funding],” said McNultyRyan. “That $125,000 went to water breaks.”
“These are the types of projects that don’t get done without the [grant] funding,” said Ward.