Dear Editor:
Weehawken’s playgrounds are in disgraceful condition. During Thanksgiving weekend, on Saturday, November 24, I took my two young children to Louisa Playground on a beautiful afternoon. There were many children there. And the playground was covered in broken glass! It was (and still is) everywhere, around the equipment for the youngest children, including toddlers, under the slides and near the benches.
The park attendant made no effort to clean it up or to close the unsafe playground, even upon request. He said that the park was only swept once a week (!) on Sunday morning and that was when the broken glass would be cleaned up. He said that he did not have a broom available. Someone did sweep it up on Sunday, and left hundreds of tiny shards of glass everywhere. That person apparently did not feel any responsibility either to see that the playground was safe for our children.
To add insult to injury, the equipment in Louisa Playground is in terrible condition. Several slides are broken, there are only infant swings available. So older children swing on them and break them, making them unusable for infants. The child safe padding is falling apart and filthy. I have never seen the sprinkler working on a summer afternoon. The water fountain is broken. Need I go on?
Who is responsible for maintaining the precious few playgrounds and parks we have in Weehawken? Who decided that a children’s playground only needs to be swept once a week, and only on Sunday, after its heavy use throughout the week, especially on Saturday? Who felt that a park attendant should not be responsible for even minimum maintenance of this heavily used playground? Is it Robert Barsa of the Public Works Department (and Director of Finance Richard Barsa’s brother?) Or is it Mayor Richard Turner?
In addition, Weehawken’s schools have no playgrounds of their own. Children attending Roosevelt School (grades 3 through 6) depend on either Louisa Playground or an asphalt lot for any outdoor playtime. Children at Webster School (pre-K through second grade) play in a parking lot with a single swing set. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recently recognized that childhood obesity is a serious cause of disease and premature death. The major cause of childhood obesity is lack of exercise. Is this how we are ensuring that our children get the healthy daily outdoor exercise they need?
This broken glass incident, and the town’s response to it, makes me ashamed of those who make decisions and administer the township of Weehawken.
Lois Goldman