USE DISTRICTS 23 



or because that space is so small that they have no chance to play 

 any of the larger space games. Out of the 54 wards in Manhattan 

 and Brooklyn, all but seven exceed that density. If we take the 

 city as a whole, including all of the boroughs, we find that 84 per 

 cent, of the population of New York live in districts where the 

 density exceeds this figure of 37.5 per acre. Some neighborhoods 

 in New York go up to 18 times that density. If we take 84 per cent, 

 of the whole number of children in this city between 5 and 15 years 

 of age as the number living in these more densely populated dis- 

 tricts, and if we then take 80 per cent, of this 84 per cent, as the 

 number who will have to play away from home, we find about 680,000 

 children in New York City who have got to play away from home. 

 The average daily attendance last summer at all the playgrounds in 

 New York City was less than one-third of 680,000. This includes 

 the average daily attendance at park playgrounds, school playgrounds 

 and playgrounds conducted by settlements and other philanthropic 

 agencies. In other words, all the public and private agencies which 

 we now have are reaching only about one-third of the child popu- 

 lation who must play away from home. Seventy-five per cent, of 

 these playgrounds close after the summer season. This means that 

 larger opportunities for play are urgently needed. To purchase 

 enough additional places to reach the remaining two-thirds of the 

 children who must play away from home would bankrupt the city. 

 Hence we must use more intensively the land that the city already 

 owns. Hence the method which was introduced last summer by the 

 Police Commissioner of using streets reserved for play for certain 

 hours in the day in certain districts, it seems to me, must for some 

 time to come be extended. My only purpose in accepting the invita- 

 tion of your Commission to speak thus briefly is to point out that, 

 while this plan of use districts is worked out for a different purpose, 

 it is going to be of very genuine and fundamental value to conditions 

 which we don't like but which we have got to face in the playground 

 and recreation situation here in New York. 



" The restricting of residential streets against factories and 

 against stores and' against public garages make those streets better 

 for play use, first, because it reduces the amount of traffic in those 

 streets. It makes the traffic in those streets simply delivery traffic 

 for household necessities, which is much less than any through traffic 

 or traffic to garages, or delivery traffic to and from stores. It re- 

 duces the amount of traffic and thus makes the burden of reserving 

 a street for play purposes much less. In the second place it makes 

 possible the reservation for play purposes of residence streets which 

 are near those on which the children are living. In short, it makes 

 possible the reservation of play streets without burden to traffic and 

 near where they are needed." 



