Want a playground downtown? Your help is needed!

[Anonymous]

Do your children, or children you know, attend a Downtown DC daycare or preschool? If so, they may be some of the hundreds of tots who are walked aimlessly each day because they have no playground. Help them get a place to play!

We are closer than ever to finally getting the first playground in Downtown DC, but we need your help NOW to make sure that the opportunity doesn’t slip through our fingers!

On Wednesday, May 2, the DC Committee on Libraries, Parks, Recreation and Planning, chaired by Councilmember Tommy Wells, unanimously approved budget recommendations that include funds for a Downtown DC Playground. Not only would this money serve to fund the playground, but the inclusion in the budget could also help to get National Park Service to quickly turn over jurisdiction of the land necessary. As so many entities are involved, and are currently very supportive of this idea, it is imperative that we keep this momentum going!

But, the funding is not currently guaranteed. The proposed budget inclusion must be reviewed and approved by the mayor and the other councilmembers. They could strip the money out, leaving us at least a couple years away from having a Downtown DC Playground, and possibly even more if all the entities involved get out of alignment. As the budget is being reviewed right now, we must get as many people as possible to reach out to the Mayor and Councilmembers and tell them that this needs to stay in the budget. Please send them an email and circulate this to as many people as possible!

Although it is best if each message is tailored so that it is not just one mass email, here is some proposed language that you can either use or tinker with to make your own. Please send to all of the email addresses listed below, as the more lawmakers reached, the more likely we are to get our playground:

Dear Mayor Gray and DC Councilmembers,

Downtown DC is in desperate need of a playground. This neighborhood has changed and grown dramatically within the past decade, but the park spaces have lagged behind. In the past few years, many children have moved - or been born - into the neighborhood. Hundreds, if not thousands, of additional children go to preschool or elementary school here. And, many thousands of children come to this neighborhood each year as part of their family vacations. Yet, there are no public playgrounds, even at the local schools. Instead, preschool children are walked in circles around the block, elementary school children play in a cramped dark garage-like space, neighborhood children are driven to the suburbs, and tourists don't stay quite so long. As this neighborhood sits in the center of a nation plagued by rising obesity, it is our responsibility to provide a safe place for neighborhood and visiting children to play.

Please help revitalize our neighborhood, keep our children healthy, and attract tourists to stay longer by supporting the Downtown DC Playground funding proposed by the Committee on Libraries, Parks, Recreation and Planning.

Sincerely,
[Name]
[Address]

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[Anonymous]

Where would this be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where would this be?

There are a couple areas under consideration, but the land in each case is owned by National Park Service, so they have to decide which area to turn over jurisdiction to the DC Government. They have already indicated willingness to cooperate. There is a separate, longer-term project that will hopefully entail a playground in Franklin Square Park - there is also funding for initial studies with related to that park in the recommendations, but that will be a much bigger project that will include a lot more than just a playground.

[Anonymous]

Great News! Unfortunately I don't have time nor do I live in DC but I always thought those squares in DC were designed poorly without much activity. In my opinion just about all of them could be redesigned better for adults and kids.

[Anonymous]

Not sure what the reference to "first playground in Downtown DC" means- there is already a small playground in Rawlins Park at 18th and E Streets. Maybe the easiest approach would be to make that one bigger and better, rather than trying to get the Park Service to turn over some land for a new one.

[Anonymous]

Love the Franklin Square location and it would help the families at Thompson nearby as well as Bright Horizons East End at 10th & K. There seem to be a lot of Hispanic families whose kids try to play on the grass next to the busy traffic at 11th/12th and L St. NW. And why oh why is the only nice playground on the mall/tourist strip way down on Haines Point?