132 commission on building districts 



Statement by Rowland Havnes, Secretary, Committee on Recreation, 



Board of Estimate, April 18, 1916 

 Residential streets as playgrounds 



The advantage of use districting to the whole recreation problem lies 

 in having reserved residence streets. Thus it is going to be possible, since 

 the delivery traffic in such streets will be comparatively light, to use some of 

 them for temporary play places, as was done by the Police Department in 

 about 25 locations last summer. The only thing I wish to emphasize is the 

 urgency and importance of such possibilities which are opened up by the 

 action of your Commission. 



Great need for additional playgrounds 



In the first place, we have to realize that through some studies which we 

 have previously made we have found that wherever the density of popula- 

 tion exceeds 37.5 per acre, about 80 per cent, in fact, somewhat over 80 

 per cent of the children have to play away from home, either because there 

 is no space in their own back yards 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 Xew York go 

 up to 18 times that density. If we take 84 per cent of the whole number of 

 children in this city between five and fifteen years of age as the number 

 living in these more densely populated districts, 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 play- 

 grounds 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 population 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 chil- 

 dren 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 dis- 

 tricts must be extended for some time to come. My only purpose in accept- 

 ing the invitation 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 in improving condi- 

 tions which we do not like but which we have got to face in the playground 

 and recreation situation here in New York. 



Districting will reduce traffic on certain streets 



The restricting of residential streets against factories, stores and public 

 garages makes 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. 



