Building on the success of our flagship adventure playground on Governors Island, play:groundNYC is launching a search for a second location to bring transformative adventure play to even more young people across New York City.
An adventure playground is a child-led zone where children direct their own play, supported by trained playworkers. At an adventure playground, children build and destroy structures, interact with nature, dress up, use tools, paint, dig, and so much more. They take physical, social, and emotional risks that develop their confidence, creativity, collaboration skills, and independence.
Adventure playgrounds offer an important “third place” for children, beyond home and school. They provide employment and community for the neighborhood. And they participate in the city’s climate resiliency by connecting children to natural features, absorbing stormwater, and repurposing materials otherwise destined for landfill.
Adventure playgrounds offer critical opportunities for city children to engage in independent, creative, and unstructured play, and are particularly suitable for 6- to 12-year-olds who are aging out of fixed play equipment like swings and slides.
play:groundNYC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming New York City through play. Since our founding in 2016, our playworkers have welcomed tens of thousands of children at our adventure playground, The Yard on Governors Island, through both free weekends and paid summer camp programs. We also serve over 1,000 children every year on field trips and at free pop-ups throughout the city.
In the eight years since our founding, we have served over 50,000 children, organized programs in all five boroughs, partnered with a broad range of city agencies, nonprofits, and businesses, and advanced a vision of a family-friendly New York City through play.
We are also committed to developing the next generation of playworkers and have trained hundreds of New York City public educators in the benefits of play and how to foster play.
For more information on play:groundNYC, see the FAQ and History page on our website here.
We are looking to complement The Yard on Governors Island with a second location that is more accessible and closer to homes and schools. An adventure playground that is integrated in a residential neighborhood can serve a larger, more consistent, and more diverse population, multiplying the benefits of adventure play.
While The Yard is only open from April through November, we want our second location to offer year-round programming in connection with local schools and community groups.
Thanks to summer camp revenues and generous public and private donations, we already have the start-up funds to build out a second location. All we need is a site, available for a free or negligible cost, and a community that is excited about the value an adventure playground can add to a neighborhood, its families, and its young people.
New York City is a challenging environment for young people, with limited opportunities for safe, unstructured, outdoor play. Adventure playgrounds are a place for city kids to experience risk-taking in a supportive environment. This helps foster the wellbeing of our children, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and creates stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient neighborhoods.
In all of our programs, playworkers repurpose materials from the waste stream for children’s play. An adventure playground in your community offers a space for creative upcycling and strengthens environmental consciousness in the next generation of New Yorkers.
Adventure playgrounds also offer a fertile ground for creative partnerships with schools, cultural organizations, and other community stakeholders to engage with children in new and creative ways. Our goal is to co-create the vision for our second location in close collaboration with neighborhood residents - both adults and children - to ensure the adventure playground advances the community’s needs.
After almost a decade of running an adventure playground on Governors Island, we have a good sense of what we are looking for in our second location. However, if you have a site that meets most but not all of these criteria, we would still love to hear from you!
- We are looking for a location in a residential neighborhood, within a few blocks of an elementary and/or middle school, so we’re within easy reach of as many kids as possible.
- We are looking for an outdoor site of at least 5,000 square feet, though 12,000-20,000 square feet is preferred.
- The site should be covered in dirt or grass (not asphalt), have some shading (natural or artificial), and have access to water and electricity.
- We also need access to a year-round indoor space, ideally 2,000-4,000 square feet, so we can provide programming in winter or inclement weather.
If you have any questions about the RFI criteria or process, please reach out to Board Member Adam Bamba Tanaka at adamt@play-ground.nyc
