Group’s pivotal role in new Greenacres playground
Neighborhood Association helped with beautiful renovation.
NOT PLAYING AROUND The Association's members lobbied to increase the playground project's budget.
In its more than 100 years of existence, the Greenacres Neighborhood Association has done a world of good, from preserving the community’s leafy charm to overseeing sidewalk improvements. Recently, it notched yet another major achievement: working with the Parks Department and Village to help a lavish renovation of the Greenacres playground become a reality.
A push quadrupled project’s budget
The proposed playground rebuild first came on the GNA’s radar in 2023, when Brian Gray, Superintendent of the Scarsdale Department of Parks, Recreation, and Conservation, discussed it at a Town Hall the GNA held. “Had we never hosted that event, we would have never known that the playground [renovation] was a thing,” said GNA president Kristen Zakierski. After that, “Brian and I kept in touch,” she said. “He loves playgrounds and he wants to see kids happy.”
Superintendent Gray doesn’t control the town budget, however. And originally, a mere $40,000 was allotted for new playground equipment. Although that cap was later raised to $70,000, it still wasn’t enough to achieve the kind of quality transformation that neighborhood residents hoped for. “We were not satisfied with the designs that came back through the Parks and Rec Department at seventy thousand dollars for equipment,” Zakierski said. “The old playground, which was thirty years old, was in such horrible shape—it had missing swings, it had ‘F.U.’ etched into one of the slides. Parts were broken, and kids were getting injured, but [the proposed small-scale renovation] would have been a downgrade.”
And then, research revealed a startling discrepancy: “All the other playgrounds that were up for renovation had a two-hundred-thousand dollar [total] budget, while Greenacres’s was only a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars,” Zakierski explained. On February 6th, 2024, she and other GNA representatives made a presentation at the Village Board of Trustees meeting, pointing out the large disparity and asking for parity to be built into the Village’s 2024-25 budget. “By March 14th, I got word that a two-hundred-thousand-dollar budget was approved for Greenacres, so that there was equity across playgrounds across town,” Zakierski said.
Now that's a playground The final result of the Greenacres Neighborhood Association's advocacy.
Careful vetting of vendors, plans
GNA members worked in tandem with Superintendent Gray, calling his list of approved vendors to obtain proposals for the new playground’s layout. Some were underwhelming. Zakierski showed her oldest child, 6, an original schematic: “He said, ‘That’s it?’” she recalled. Other renderings were also too spare, too similar to the existing playground, or lacked much-desired features, such as a bridge.
Ultimately, the contract was awarded to Little Tykes, which offered the novelty and quality the GNA and neighborhood had long wanted. The final results are now across from Greenacres Elementary for all to see—and many children to enjoy. “Everyone is in awe and just so excited. The first day it was open, September ninth, there were upwards of a hundred kids, just so excited. They didn’t even want the ice cream truck,” Kakierski said.
An example and inspiration
For others who might be considering local volunteerism, Zakierski hopes the story behind the new Greenacres playground will be an inspiration. “I think it’s a beautiful example of a collaboration between a neighborhood association or any volunteer community entity and the Village. And I think that everyone had a role to play, and the Neighborhood Association had a particularly significant role to play, all the way through to the conception of the playground,” she said. “For people who see a need in their community, they should know that they can have their voices heard, and advocate for what they need.”