New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

New York City Department Of Parks And Recreation

The City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation (colloquially, the Parks Department) is the department of government of the City of New York responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecological diversity of the city's natural areas, and furnishing recreational opportunities for city's residents and visitors.

The total area of the properties maintained by the department is over 28,000 acres (113 km²).

The department maintains more than 1,700 parks, playgrounds and recreation facilities across the five boroughs. It is responsible for over 950 playgrounds, 700 playing fields, 550 tennis courts, 35 major recreation centers, 30 outdoor pools, 14 miles (23 km) of beaches, and 13 golf courses, as well as seven nature centers, six ice skating rinks, over 2000 greenstreets and four major stadiums. Parks also cares for park flora and fauna, community gardens, historic houses, statues and monuments, and more than 2.5 million trees.

The City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation produces many special events, including concerts and movie premieres. In the summer, the busiest season, the agency organizes free carnivals and concerts, and sends mobile recreation vans to travel throughout the five boroughs providing free rental equipment for skating, baseball, and miniature golf.

The largest single component of parkland maintained by the department is the "forever wild" Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, with an area of 2,765 acres (11 km²). The department is also responsible for such "flagship" parks facilities as Central Park, Prospect Park, Van Cortlandt Park, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and the Staten Island Greenbelt.

Read more about New York City Department Of Parks And Recreation:  Agency, Park Law Enforcement, Urban Park Rangers, Concessions, Wright Vs. Stern

Famous quotes containing the words york, city, department, parks and/or recreation:

    “More than illness or death, the American journalist fears standing alone against the whim of his owners or the prejudices of his audience. Deprive William Safire of the insignia of the New York Times, and he would have a hard time selling his truths to a weekly broadsheet in suburban Duluth.”
    —Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)

    “I come from the city of Boston,
    The home of the bean and the cod,”
    —John Collins Bossidy (1860–1928)

    “In the great department store of life, baseball is the toy department.”
    —Los Angeles Sportscaster. quoted in Independent Magazine (London, Sept. 28, 1991)

    “Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.”
    —José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)

    “Media mystifications should not obfuscate a simple, perceivable fact; Black teenage girls do not create poverty by having babies. Quite the contrary, they have babies at such a young age precisely because they are poor—because they do not have the opportunity to acquire an education, because meaningful, well-paying jobs and creative forms of recreation are not accessible to them ... because safe, effective forms of contraception are not available to them.”
    —Angela Davis (b. 1944)