New Turf Field On the Way in Prospect Heights
Artificial turf is in the process of being put down at the Dean Street Playground, which is between 6th Avenue and Carlton. The project was supposed to be finished last month, according to a Parks Dept. worker who was on the site last week, and the new target completion date is this Thursday. The Parks…
Artificial turf is in the process of being put down at the Dean Street Playground, which is between 6th Avenue and Carlton. The project was supposed to be finished last month, according to a Parks Dept. worker who was on the site last week, and the new target completion date is this Thursday. The Parks employee said the contractor on the job has been having trouble getting the turf to adhere to the playground’s asphalt surface. In addition to the synthetic turf, the ballfield is slated to have new dugouts and spectator benches. GMAP
Tracy, thanks for jogging my memory. This was funded with Boymelgreen money, somehow related to Newswalk, right? Nothing to do with Atlantic Yards. I seem to have gone off on a tangent in response to IJ’s post. If local people are happy with this, who am I to tell them what is good enough?
bkre: i believe you are right. i live across dean street from the playground, and the process you describe seems right from what i remember.
talking with the parks dep person overseeing the reno, she said that they have been delayed due to rain. the contractor says that the gluing of the turf to the asphalt can’t happen when it’s wet.
g_man: as far as i know, a sizeable chunk of the money for the reno came from private donations. i’m not sure how much money, if any, the city contributed.
personally, i think this will be better than the bare asphalt it replaces, even if we didn’t get the luxe version.
Interesting, bkre. If I remember correctly, this work was done in part to mitigate the impact of the Atlantic Yards project. To think the city went cheap under those circumstances is a place I don’t really want to go.
g-man – it would surprise me too. But I’ve been by there several times. First they dug up the whole area and installed a whole bunch of what I assume are underground drainage pipes. Then they leveled the dirt and pave over it in asphalt, then they laid down the artificial turf – then they rolled it up and there appears to be big vats of glue disperssed all over the park waiting to be used to glue the turf to the asphalt.
It looks like the whole park is pitched slightly towards dean street and there are drains right at the edge of the park near the fence/sidewalk. I assume the rain is supposed to soak through the turf and then follow the slope on the asphalt till it ggets to the catch basins near the dean street edge. Bud I’m surprised there isn’t more cushioning.
FieldTurf has a whole sub-grade system; it is not glued to asphalt (or other hard surface). This might indicate that Parks is not installing a state of the art surface, but that would surprise me if true. Maybe the description of the problem with the work is inaccurate.
Is it that RealTurf stuff? If so, it’s good because the city is using the best articicial grass there is. If it’s the old school astroturf, good grief.