Yorktown Park-Safety Effort Continues

Chelsea Playground will be demolished in early June

Yorktown’s playground safety initiative will continue this summer with the demolition of Chelsea Park Playground.

The demolition is expected to begin in June and replacement equipment will enhance the town’s budding girls’ softball program. The Yorktown Athletic Club will also build a new batting cage and a warm-up area there.

Chelsea Park Playground is the seventh park to get a safety overhaul after Supervisor Matt Slater and parks Superintendent James Martorano discovered that safety inspections had not been performed on the town’s parks in decades.

Last year, they commissioned a safety audits of seven parks and repairs on six of the parks were completed earlier this year.

“Our community’s children cannot be allowed to play on dangerously decrepit swings or other equipment,” said Supervisor Slater. “Now that many pandemic restrictions on parks and playground have lifted, it’s critical that our parks be in their finest condition to receive the many children who couldn’t play in the parks last year.”

The six parks that received repairs are Yorkhill Park, Railroad Park, Sparkle Lake Park, Willow Park, Fox Den Park and Junior Lake Park.

“The park-improvement campaign will not end with Chelsea Park,” said Superintendent Martorano. “In the fall we will audit eight additional playgrounds and then initiate repairs to correct any deficiencies so that our parks meet national safety standards.”

The playgrounds to be audited later this year are at: Downing Park, Ivy Knolls Park, Blackberry Woods Park, Deer Hollow Park, Hanover East Park, Kensington Woods Park, Shrub Oak Park and Veterans Park.

The park-safety overhaul involved designating a staff member of Parks & Recreation to be properly trained and certified by the National Parks and Recreation Association.