Playground Jail in Bed Stuy Sparking Outrage
The emergence of a jail-themed jungle gym at the Tompkins Houses in Bedford Stuyvesant has the community in an uproar. Black and Brown News, which ran this image earlier this week, did some homework and found that NYCHA was responsible for ordering it earlier this week. I don’t think they should put that there in…
The emergence of a jail-themed jungle gym at the Tompkins Houses in Bedford Stuyvesant has the community in an uproar. Black and Brown News, which ran this image earlier this week, did some homework and found that NYCHA was responsible for ordering it earlier this week. I don’t think they should put that there in a neighborhood where many Blacks and Latinos go to jail,” one resident of the public housing complex told BBN. “My son will ask me, Mommy, if I go in there, will I go to jail. As of yesterday, NYCHA had told BBN it was “looking into” the matter and there had been no response yet from the mayor’s office. Pretty mind-boggling and offensive, no?
Jail Playground’ at NYC Public Housing Property [BBN]GMAP
Photo by Monifa Bandele
Beggars should not be choosers? Really? That stoopid. Let’s put a giant penis up at the playground near the Promenade for the little girls to slide down. Oh, and a Coochie Cave that represents mommies womb at P.S. 321 for kids to crawl in and out of! How fun!!
Wow. I walk my own child by The Tombs in Manhattan on the way to school every day and she has seen many a perp being brought in. I tell her they didn’t listen to their parents when they were little. Anyway, lots of kids at her school see this on a daily basis and apparently they like to play prisoner at recess. However, an officially sanctioned jungle gym with a jail? In NYC? It boggles the mind. It’s one thing for kids to be kids. It’s quite another for some dumbass in the NYCHA to ok the order. S/he deserves to be removed from their duties. And who are the idiots who designed the equipment to begin with? It’s awful in just about every way.
Wine Lover has a good point about beggars not being choosers.
There are lots of people who get raises or better jobs and stay in the projects because the rent is so ridiculously low. That’s not right.
And yes, I grew up near the projects with kids from the projects, went to birthday parties in project community centers and let me tell you the things going on in some of these kids homes are what truly scars kids, not a piece of plastic on a playground.
And to all the people labeling others as racist, how I’d love to be a fly on the wall in your homes.
They should rename this project the Glass Houses
“you know more than EVERYONE on EVERY TOPIC. it’s like a constant know it all attitude, get over yourself.”
Rob – pot, meet kettle.
Considering that you post on almost every thread on this blog, every day, whether you know anything at all about the topic or not, or have anything substantive to say about the topic, I find your comment hilarious.
I’m interested in knowing how long it’s going to take the city to remove it.
winelover, what? don’t tell me you’re one of those people that think a tax cut or a tax credit that you apply for every yearis a hand out?…ick. grown ups are angry here.
“One can argue if in general it’s a good idea to put a Jail themed playground anywhere but for some of the other posters to imply that “it is especially offensive because it’s in the projects” seems a bit condecending on their end. Since when is going to jail a protected class worthy of PC status”
Certain ideas work in certain neighborhoods..this idea does not work in this neighborhood.
If I open up a coffee shop called Earthquake Cafe in the Slope, it won’t be an issue…If the same shop opens in Flatbush(w/ a large Haitian population) it is offensive TO THOSE PEOPLE!..GET IT?
Winelover, give me a break. So now little old ladies on social security, living in subsidized housing are criminals? I know that’s not who you had in mind, but they qualify in your brave new world. You resent part of your tax dollars going to help hard working people live in housing set up for them? Too bad. They are not criminals, unless being poor is a criminal act in of itself. If that’s the case, let’s go back to medieval times, and have them beg at the castle gates, or perhaps back to the good old days when we had debtor’s prison and workhouses. After all, everyone knows that in this land of equal opportunity and fairness, EVERYONE has had an equal and fair chance at the starting gate of life, so if you aren’t sucessful, and therefore well off, it MUST be because you are a lazy, criminally minded drain on society. What a horrible society we live in that we should deign to help others have a roof over their heads.
winelover- and yet the projects are filled with hard-working people who also pay taxes, obey the laws, raise their kids to live good and productive lives. MM once posted (very powerfully may I say)about what living in the projects is like- it’s no picnic and not a single one of us would ever want to set a toe in the door of some of these places.
Most poor people fill the jobs that the rest of us don’t want. they are necessary but they don’t pay all that well. Every expense takes a bigger chunk out of their paycheck- food, for example. So what’s society to do?