An Historical Analysis of Young People's Use of Public Space, Parks and Playgrounds in New York City^{1, 2}

Pamela J. Wridt
City University of New York, Graduate Center
Environmental Psychology Program

Citation: Wridt, Pamela J. (2004). “An Historical Analysis of Young People’s Use of Public Space, Parks and Playgrounds in New York City.” Children, Youth and Environments 14(1): 100-120.

Abstract

In this paper I present childhood biographies of three people who grew up in or near a public housing development located on the border between the contrasting communities of Yorkville and East Harlem in New York City. Stories of their middle childhood (ages 11-13) poignantly capture the social and spatial evolution of play and recreation in New York City from the 1930s until present time. Based on in-depth childhood autobiographies and archival materials from the New York Times, I demonstrate changes in children’s access to play and recreation space, how children negotiate their lived experiences in these spaces, and how these spaces reflect differing representations of childhood over time. While play and recreation are, of course, a broad range of activities that occur in multiple settings and under various forms of supervision, the focus of this paper is upon the role of the streets, public parks and playgrounds in children’s everyday lives. Preliminary results suggest that children’s access to public play spaces in New York City has declined over time. This decline can be attributed to public disinvestment in neighborhood parks and playgrounds, perceived (and real) violence in these spaces, and more recently, to the commercialization and privatization of playtime activities.

Keywords: public space, playgrounds, parks, young people, New York City.

Introduction

My research confirms findings from studies about New York City and other parts of the developed world that document a sharp reduction in young people’s access to public play spaces in urban areas (Cunningham, Jones and Barlow 1996; Gaster 1991; Tranter and Doyle 1996). These studies examine the influence of increased automobile usage on street play and the disinvestment in parks and playgrounds as major contributing factors in altering young people’s experiences with the outdoor environment. In my research, I examine these factors while also taking into consideration larger social factors (such as a diminishing sense of community, race and class) that influence young people’s access to their local environment.

The biographies provided in this paper are derived from my research on the historical geography of childhood in a racially diverse, lower-income to working-class community bordering the neighborhoods of Yorkville and East Harlem in New York City. Today Yorkville is a predominantly white, middle- to upper-income community that has been gentrified over the last 20 years from its former status as a working-class Irish, German and Italian neighborhood. Yorkville is located adjacent to the neighborhood of East Harlem, which is predominantly a lower- income, African American and Puerto Rican community. The border between Yorkville and East Harlem is one of the most economically distinct in all of New York City– the wealthiest and poorest of the city’s residents live side by side, with differences in median household incomes of US$100,000 from one side of the street to the next.

Research Background

Figure 1. Map of Study Site Area in Yorkville/East Harlem, New York City

In my research, I conducted a variety of qualitative and participatory methods (e.g., ethnography, archival research– census data, historical records, newspapers- a community forum and a project website). In this paper I rely primarily on extensive environmental autobiographies (i.e., a multi-method approach including interviews and focus groups, mapping, neighborhood walks, and visualization exercises) with six seniors in their 60s and early 70s (representing childhood experiences during the 1940s), seven adults in their 30s (representing childhood experience during the 1970s) and ten young people aged 11-13 (representing contemporary childhood experiences in the 2000s). These time periods were chosen to analyze trends in the data in 30-year intervals. While my personal involvement in the community continues to this day, I spent three years collecting detailed ethnographic field notes and developing and implementing participatory projects, and roughly six months interviewing individuals in-depth.

The focus of this investigation is upon the period of middle childhood (roughly the period of childhood between ages 11 and 13), a time when most young people are able to actively and autonomously explore their communities (Hart 1979). Sociologists, environmental psychologists and geographers have employed similar techniques to elicit placed-based memories from individuals in a way that differs from most psychological research, which tends to focus upon eliciting memories of discrete objects or events within the placeless setting of a laboratory (Chawla 1994; Gaster 1991; Tuan 1977). For example, Gaster (1991) compared young people’s changing access to play environments in New York City from the 1890s to 1990s. Using methods that invoked memories of place, he found a significant decrease in young people’s use of public spaces, parks and playgrounds over time.

According to research on autobiographical memory, memories can constitute images, concepts, phenomenological experiences, emotions and linguistic or symbolic codes (Schrauf and Rubin 2000). The extent to which individuals can recount a particular event, process, or experience depends upon a researcher’s technique to elicit these memories, as well as many other factors such as the individual’s emotional relations to a particular period, and their style as storytellers. Similarly, as Creswell points out, “biographical writing is, in part, autobiographical of the author [researcher] as well as the individual being studied…we create the persons we write about, just as they create themselves when they engage in storytelling practices” (Creswell 1998, 251).

Because my research deals more explicitly with memories of place, the purpose of the environmental autobiographies was to enable my interviewees multiple mediums– visual (e.g., through personal photographs), auditory/olfactory (e.g., on neighborhood walks), and tactile (e.g., by drawing pictures and maps)– in which to express their memories and/or current understandings of their middle childhood (roughly from the ages of 11-13) in ways that made them confront the spatiality of their experiences (e.g., by mapping their play/leisure spaces and then using this map to probe further into a memory or thought when we went on a neighborhood walk). Adopting multiple approaches to elicit environmental memories also enabled me to discover contradictions in my interviewees’ discourse and to challenge or reaffirm their personally remembered and/or socially constructed childhood experiences, an issue that is problematic for any study dealing with memory (Handel 1984, 2000). Finally these multiple approaches proved useful in ensuring that adults and seniors were remembering the specific time period (ages 11-13) that was the focus of this study (e.g., sometimes an interviewee would realize their story reflected an earlier or later time period while on a neighborhood walk).

I met my interviewees through multiple social networks over the course of two years – as a computer teacher at “Teen Night,” a program sponsored by a community center located in the Isaacs, by attending the center’s programs for seniors and adults, through word of mouth, by posting flyers in the neighborhood describing my research, and through my volunteer work in the community. Participants volunteered to share their childhood memories and were selected because of their current age, location of residence during the ages of 11-13, their race, and gender in order to create a balance in the study population over time. My interviewees therefore reflected a balance of men/boys and women/girls from all racial backgrounds represented in the study population, and were all from similar class backgrounds (i.e., working-class to lower-income).³

While I interviewed more young people than adults or seniors, my original intention was to interview ten in each sub-population. This proved difficult for a number of reasons, but mainly was a function of locating individuals who met my criteria for selection (e.g., their age, location of residence during their childhood and in some instances their ability to meet with me for extensive periods of time). To make up for smaller samples in the adult and senior categories, I conducted extensive ethnographic field work with adults and seniors (e.g., attending senior meetings, chatting with individuals informally in public spaces) and I conducted two focus groups with five seniors over the telephone (a conference call) as part of the community center’s program to reach out to immobile seniors. I feel this data mirrors the stories I collected from adults and seniors, as well as those reported by individuals in secondary sources such as the Works Progress Administration’s guide to Spanish Harlem and Yorkville (1939) and by authors such as Thomas (1967).

The foci of my interviews, focus groups and dialogues with individuals included young people’s relationships with adults and peers in the community; their access to public space, play and recreation; their leisure time activities; their territorial range and places behaviors; and their image and sense of the community. This methodological approach enabled me to compare, contrast and triangulate the social, spatial and environmental experience of middle childhood in one community over time. Over 70 hours of audiotaped and transcribed interview data (three or four interviews per person lasting one to three hours each), visual artifacts (e.g., maps and photographs representing the interviewees’ childhoods), detailed ethnographic field notes and archival research revealed a variety of themes about the historical experience of childhood in this community, one of which was the changing of access to play and recreation.

For this paper I have selected three individuals whose childhood experiences with parks, playgrounds and public spaces are representative of a particular time period and whose stories were largely confirmed by other research participants. The stories of Victoria (age 60), Reggie (age 31) and Noel (age 13) document the historical transformation of play experiences in Yorkville and East Harlem, from the streets to the playgrounds and ultimately to private play spaces.

From the Streets to the Playgrounds

Figure 2. Playing on the streets in Yorkville, c. 1960

As Victoria’s childhood experiences suggest, the streets were an important play space for children growing up in New York City in the early to middle decades of the twentieth century (Nasaw 1985). The overcrowded tenements (from a population explosion of immigrants) didn’t offer much space to play inside, and the hot weather during the summer months coupled with minimal ventilation was a natural deterrent to life indoors. The street was a space for enjoyment, adventure and independence for both young children and older youth (Opie and Opie 1969). Mothers allowed their children to play on the streets until late in the evening, as they knew neighbors were keeping a watchful eye on their sons and daughters. Parents could also keep an eye on their children with great ease by peering out their tenement windows.

Of course playing on the streets created problems for the children as well, for they had to share the streets with adults, vendors, policemen, and a growing number of automobiles. While children were skilled at maneuvering in and out of traffic during their playtime activities, when automobiles became more prevalent in the cities, the number of child deaths also increased dramatically. The growing number of traffic-related child deaths prompted settlement house workers and reformers (sometimes referred to as “child savers”) to campaign in the newspapers and within political organizations to lobby for the creation of “safe” play environments, such as playgrounds and after school programs ("Smith Makes Plea" 1930).

One such organization was the City Club of New York, which conducted a detailed study of traffic-related child deaths by school district in 1929 ("Playground Appeal" 1930). In this study, a map dubbed “The Murder Map” demonstrated the spatial relationship between the presence and absence of playgrounds in particular districts and the number of child deaths related to traffic accidents. Those districts with more playgrounds had less child fatalities; those with fewer playgrounds reported more child fatalities. In this study, the City Club cited 340 deaths and almost 14,000 injuries directly related to playing in the streets (jumping on the back of trucks, playing games in the roadway and bicycle riding). The creation of parks and playgrounds was therefore viewed as a way to protect the children from physical injury and harm that accompanied everyday playtime in the streets ("As Mayor to Clear Streets of Children" May 6, 1910).

There were other arguments for the development of safe play environments, one of which was to prevent juvenile delinquency. This argument resonated with middle and upper income populations who viewed the street as a breeding ground for immorality among poorer immigrant populations (Goodman 1979). Prominent organizations such as the Children’s Aid Society and the City Club invested large sums of money into the development of other play spaces, as a means of both protecting children and curtailing the “gang spirit” among boys and girls.

We are planning, in a large and very definite way, what we call the ‘spare time approach.’ Hundreds of our minors, boys and girls both, are ‘playing’ their way into trouble. Every boy is gregarious. He does not want to play alone. In him the gang spirit is strong. If left to himself– and home influences are every day growing weaker– he is liable to find expression of this instinct in the street corner and back alley gang, where delinquency breeds. It is our purpose to provide, for boy and girl alike, clubs and playgrounds where they may exercise their gregarious play instinct under wholesome conditions ("Child Aid Society" 1930).

This argument was supported by the passage of curfews and street laws prohibiting begging, roaming around, loitering, blocking sidewalks and playing street games (Goodman 1979). Here we see the street not as a playground but as a place of physical danger as well as a breeding ground for immoral behaviors (e.g., sex and illegal activities). In this context, parks and playgrounds represented an emancipatory space in which parents (usually mothers) could allow their children to play without fear of the demoralizing effects of street life and the dangers of traffic and other hazards. Reformers recognized that play was how children learned and made sense of the world. Yet to have beneficial effects, play had to be organized and supervised (self-directed street play was seen as unimaginative and unproductive). Reformers wanted to ensure that children played the “proper way,” which was based upon their own middle-class values and constructions of play and of childhood.

Tactics such as the “Murder Map” and lobbying from private organizations such as the Children’s Aid Society and “child savers” eventually moved city officials to embark on the creation of additional parks and playgrounds ("17,197,000 Asked" 1950; "Asks New City Parks" 1930). In the mid-1930s and early 1940s, there was an unprecedented growth in public play spaces within New York City. Under the first six years of Robert Moses’ tenure as Parks Commissioner, New York City witnessed a 100 percent increase in parks, a 225 percent increase in playgrounds, and a 1,000 percent increase in swimming pools ("Moses Defends Costs" 1940). By 1940, New York City boasted over 410 public playgrounds, 25 athletic fields and 40 pools ("3 Playgrounds Open" 1940; "56 More Centers" 1940; "Schools Expand " 1940). These city-based public works projects were supported by federal policies of President Roosevelt’s New Deal era in which the Works Project Administration (WPA) hired unemployed men as construction workers (Caro 1975).

Most of the land on which parks and playgrounds were built had to be purchased, taken over by the city, or received through private donations. Corruption within the city government and pressure from private interest groups created a spatial concentration of parks and playgrounds in wealthier neighborhoods. Wealthier communities were given priority over the less politically active communities located in slum neighborhoods (such as East Harlem), which were predominantly inhabited by African Americans and Puerto Ricans. For example, during the 1930s Robert Moses built 255 neighborhood playgrounds, only one of which was located in Harlem (Caro 1975).

Despite the city’s investment in public play and recreation, it took more than merely the physical space of the playground to effectively remove children from the streets. From early on, there was a concern that educational activities would be required to lure children from the streets into the playgrounds, and that adults should supervise these activities ("20 Play Centers" 1950). Initially federal WPA workers served the function of play leaders, later to be replaced by City Parks Department employees ("Playgrounds " 1950). These play leaders provided an important role in the maintenance, supervision and policing of playgrounds (Caro 1975).

Growing up in Yorkville, Victoria had access to a playground where she had fond memories of a play leader named “Whitie.”

We used to play in this park, which had a lot of activities. We used to have a park man. He would play games. He used to have crafts out there for you to do. He worked for the city, but he used to do that himself. He used to get us crayons, checkers…we used to have contests of Chinese checkers. And the city supplied all the toys in those days. He made it his park. We’d always say, ‘You going to Whitie’s Park?’ He was a firm believer of having children off the streets and in his park. I used to swing around his flagpole. He used to say, ‘Get off that flag pole!’ And if we got hurt, he always had a [first aid] kit inside to take care of you, your wounds and whatever (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Whitie’s Park, c. 1960

Play leaders were necessary to convince parents to allow their children to play in playgrounds and parks, which were located out of their eyesight from the tenement window. The once informal supervision of children on the streets by adults from the block had almost entirely been replaced by city-sponsored, supervised play and recreation in designated spaces. A significant level of discourse in the local media about children’s safety was also important in creating a concern amongst the public about the dangers of the streets. For example, a police department advertisement in a July issue of the New York Times in 1940 listed “Vacation Don’ts,” including “Don’t play games in the roadway. Don’t hitch on trucks, cars and other vehicles. Don’t weave in and out of traffic while riding your bicycle. Don’t ride on the handlebars. Don’t pass red lights” ("Supervised Playing" 1940). These types of advertisements would often be accompanied by suggestions that parents bring their children to playgrounds for safe and adult supervised playtime activities.

By the late 1950s, while children like Victoria were still playing on the streets, more and more of their play activities were taking place in supervised settings such as neighborhood parks, playgrounds and boys and girls clubs. Over the course of several decades, the street lost its prominence as the place of children’s daily lives and everyday play activities. The streets were now considered dangerous play spaces and a breeding ground for immoral behaviors. The development of playgrounds and the middle-class discourses of danger that accompanied them were among the many social transformations that have led to the removal of childhood from street life, and thus, community life in general.

The Deterioration of Parks and Playgrounds

As an African American man growing up in the 1970s, Reggie’s childhood play experiences are ripe with stories of racially-based confrontations with his peers. Reggie was stabbed and almost died in a nearby park and tells stories of being threatened by a gang of white boys, known as “the Budweisers” (because they drank Budweiser beer) who carried golf clubs with the intention of beating and terrorizing African Americans and Hispanics who walked through a neighborhood park. By day the parks in Reggie’s neighborhood were relatively safe places for children to congregate, but by night they often became sites of terror for Blacks and Hispanics.

Reggie’s experiences reflect a shift in young people’s access and use of parks and playgrounds in New York City. The creation and maintenance of parks and playgrounds in New York City required a significant financial investment from the city. By the 1970s, the fiscal crisis all but eliminated funding for basic public works projects such as the city’s parks and playgrounds (Goodwin 1980). Public disinvestment in parks and playgrounds meant that the city could no longer afford to employ play leaders and “parkees” such as Whitie to the degree it had in the 1950s, let alone provide funding for the general maintenance and upkeep of these spaces.

As a result of this disinvestment and neglect, parks and playgrounds became run down and taken over by social deviants. Increased drug trafficking in the 1960s and 1970s and the sale of crack cocaine in the 1980s set the stage for a new use of the city’s parks and playgrounds (Passant 1960). Reggie recalls that marijuana was grown in what he and his friends referred to as the “broken down park,” a neighborhood park that was partially demolished by the city and left in ruins instead of being renovated. The Budweiser gang used to have parties there in the evening hours with kegs of beer. Children who wished to play in the parks thus had to deal with drug dealers and drug addicts who congregated in these public spaces, especially at night, as well with a variety of uses that might pose a danger to young people.

Drugs were just one aspect of the immorality of street life invading the parks and playgrounds during this time period. Reports of gang activity and violence between children and youth were also topping the headlines (Dotwin 1970). Violence between children and youth can be attributed in part to race relations in New York City (and the nation) during the 1960s and 1970s (Robertson 1970). Confrontations in neighborhood parks were just an extension of the social tensions of this time period. Reggie recalls numerous experiences in which his racial identity was a factor in his everyday life. These experiences were particularly intense for Reggie given that he was a bi-racial child living along the border of East Harlem and Yorkville, which often represented extreme differences in race, class and social norms. Reggie was often referred to as “nigger Reg” by his white friends. “They didn’t realize that’s very offensive,” Reggie remarked. “Black people back then were called niggers, it’s that simple.” Reggie was “feared” by his white peers in Yorkville and was not considered “black enough” in East Harlem.

A young person’s racial identity was a common source of tension among peers growing up along the Yorkville-East Harlem border that would often result in verbal exchanges or physical violence in parks or playgrounds where there was less adult supervision.

I couldn’t walk through the areas in which the Budweisers hung out. There were a couple other African Americans that lived in the neighborhood and if we went through the wrong area, they would like literally try to harm us. They mostly hung out in Carl Schultz Park [and] fortunately I ran pretty fast. You’d just hear the insults, bottles being thrown at you and rocks and stuff, and you know being chased. And, fortunately I was never caught. Who knows what would have happened if I would have got caught!

As Reggie’s narrative suggests, these types of violent acts often occurred between groups of young teenagers. Police would often threaten to “crackdown on hoodlums, teenage gangs and derelicts if they try to take over the city’s parks and recreational areas” (Passant 1960). This type of everyday discourse further perpetuated the middle-class argument that poorer children and youth did not have adequate supervision in their playtime activities (Holloway 1992). Private and non-profit organizations continued to lobby for the improvement of recreational facilities, which they felt would “replace conditions that make for juvenile delinquency with an environment promoting juvenile decency” (Lissner 1960). These programs were often targeted at minority children and youth, who were increasingly becoming labeled, along with the parks themselves, as the source of societal problems ("City Arranging Programs" 1970). As one New York Times article reports, “Nine out of 10 times, what people mean when they say the park is lousy is not only that it’s not clean, but that there are kids smoking dope and there are graffiti and there are blacks and Hispanics where there were once Italians and Jews” ("City Hoping " 1980).

In Yorkville, arguments about the “prevention of anti-social criminal behavior” among young people led Community District 8 to create a Youth Board and to give it “Number 1 Expense Budget Priority” in 1986, “even higher than increased police manpower” (City of New York 1986, 97). Unlike public discourse at the city level, the Board recognized “the needs of all youths,” and that “non-poor kids who are truants, delinquents and have problems are not recognized” (City of New York 1986, 97). Despite such concerns for the diversity of youth residing in Yorkville, Reggie’s experiences clearly indicate race was an important factor in a young person’s use of public space. While not overtly targeting minority youth, the implication of such programs as “outreach workers” proposed by the Youth Board suggests the opposite to be true. “Youths need not while away unproductive hours on the street. And workers are needed especially to reach those who drink and take drugs in the streets and who instill fear in senior citizens and other residents as they congregate near building entrances, under windows and at the edge of parks” (City of New York 1985, 97).

While Reggie had difficulties in his everyday play experience in neighborhood parks, it is important to note that these spaces were also a source of great pleasure for him, in particular, within East Harlem. He often traveled uptown to participate in outdoor dances, what he called “open jams.” During the 1970s, playgrounds located in public housing developments became one of the public spaces in which the hip-hop culture in New York City evolved (Fricke and Ahearn 2002; Ogg and Upshal 2001). Reggie would go from playground to playground to participate in these parties, which contrary to contemporary hip-hop culture, were an attempt by African-American youth to stop gang violence and to construct new methods for gaining respect through art rather than with weapons. “People brought their equipment outside, plugged it up to a light post, closed off the area and just had a party in the playgrounds and streets, and that’s where hip hop came from.”

It was on these playgrounds that Reggie found another reality, one that celebrated his African American identity. To this day, Reggie attributes his love for music and his career as a disk jockey to his experiences in these playgrounds. Open jams in neighborhood playgrounds were a source of escapism, where one could lose themselves in the music, dancing, and often drugs and drinking. But these open jams symbolized more than just a release from the racial tensions of the 1970s- they represented young people’s creative use and appropriation of a public setting to suit their own needs and desires, much like the playtime activities on the streets in earlier decades.

Reggie’s play experiences demonstrate a time period in New York City’s history in which public disinvestments in parks and playgrounds led to the deterioration of these sites as safe play environments for children and youth. Over time, these vandalized, run down, and drug-infested parks and playgrounds transformed children’s (and adults’) use and image of these spaces as play and recreation settings. Many parents in Yorkville and East Harlem also became wary of allowing their children to play in parks and playgrounds, eventually restricting them from these spaces. Families with greater economic resources began considering different places to take their children for play and recreation, while poorer (and often minority) families were left with derelict parks and playgrounds. Increasingly the Parks Department sought out private-public partnerships in which individuals and organizations would share the costs for the maintenance of parks ("City Hoping" 1980).

The Commercialization of Play and Recreation

Noel’s play experiences in the neighborhood parks and playgrounds are very different than the childhood experiences of the 1950s and 1970s– in fact, she doesn’t really play there at all. Noel’s parents are extremely protective of her, primarily because she is a girl, and invest an enormous amount of energy monitoring her everyday life. Although Noel used to play in Batman Park (a playground in the Isaacs) when she was younger, her parents forbid her from visiting other parks in the neighborhood because they (and Noel herself) consider these places to be sites of violence and drugs. Noel remarked,

I don’t go to the park on 96th. Whitie’s Park…it’s a dirty park. It’s just you don’t want to go there. There’s drugs and stuff like that going on over there, so we just don’t go over there. And I don’t really go to Central Park, except for when we like go to the museum. You can get mugged and, it’s just too much stuff going on over there.

While Whitie’s Park held fond memories for Victoria as a child, this playground and other parks are no longer viable options as play settings for Noel because of their perceived danger. Instead of spending time in neighborhood parks, Noel visits local clothing and music stores with her friends to have fun and window shop. 86th Street is the commercial heart of Yorkville and is an important area for young teens growing up there today. According to Noel,

whenever my friends and I get together we always go to the movies. We hang around 86th and Third. After school sometimes we go to HMV (a music store), or we go to Staples (an office supply store), you know, just to see what’s there. We’ll go there a lot to buy CD’s.

Noel’s trips to 86th Street are rare because her family restricts her daily travels out of fear for her safety. “My dad hasn’t let go completely yet. No, he hasn’t cut the cord yet.” As a result, Noel spends a considerable amount of time talking and visiting with her friends in other ways. “I’m always on the Internet, instant messaging…not as much email, but instant messaging. The television is always on, and the computer is always on too. I text message on my cell phone.”

Noel’s everyday life is representative of a larger transformation in the commercialization of play and recreation (Pristin 2001). Accompanying this change is a retreat indoors into private spaces of play and recreation, in which technological mediums of entertainment replace playtime activities in neighborhood parks (Scott 1995). “Some of the most popular baby sitters in the city are named Nintendo, Bugs Bunny and the Brady Bunch” (Quindlen 1990). Outdoor play is gradually being replaced by what some might consider to be less creative activities: watching television, playing video games and, for the middle class, going to private pay-for-play spaces like “the Discovery Zone” (Leimbach 1995; Quindlen 1990). In addition, young people are increasingly targeted by marketing firms, thus influencing their consumption patterns in a way that they have become largely based on indoor forms of play and recreation (Linn 2004).

The privatization and commercialization of play and recreation is also accompanied by an increase in structured playtime activities. While wealthy parents can fill their children’s free time with expensive, organized activities, poorer parents must rely upon the city’s community centers and after school programs (Sexton 1995). Such differences point to the influence of class on children’s environmental experiences, something that is echoed in the work of Lareau (2003). The fact that community centers must rely heavily upon city funding to run their programs creates serious problems in the consistency and quality of care for poorer children, particularly during the summer months (Robinson et al. 1986). According to a 1990 New York Times article, the struggles poor parents face when the city cuts spending on summer programs often leads them to lock their children indoors (Quindlen 1990).

Noel’s narrative suggests parents are cautious about letting their children outdoors in unsupervised play spaces such as parks and playgrounds (Brown 1995). While locking children up indoors can be attributed to the perceived and real violence in these spaces, the city’s disinvestment in parks and playgrounds that began in the 1960s continues to erode the quality of these spaces today. For example, research by Gaster indicated that budget cuts within the Parks Department resulted in an 80 percent reduction in departmental staff, from a high of 80,000 in the 1940s to 2,600 employees in 1995 (Gaster 1990).

The deterioration of parks coupled with violence in the streets have led many educators and community leaders to lobby for increased spending in after school programs and indoor play settings to protect children from the “immoral” and “dangerous” elements in public parks (Quindlen 1990). In other words, present-day park and playground activists echo the arguments about “immoral” streets put forth by reformers in the early part of the twentieth century. While some children do continue to play games on the streets, their numbers are few and their options for indoor play opportunities are increasing, especially in wealthier families. The social imagery of parks and playgrounds as dangerous play environments, coupled with the lure of technological mediums of entertainment have in many ways removed children from the public spaces of the community and into structured, and often private, indoor spaces.

Conclusion

The decline in children’s access to public play spaces has led to a spatial change in the location of children’s playtime activities: from the streets, to the playgrounds, to indoor play spaces such as the home, community centers and private pay-for-play commercial centers. This spatial change is accompanied by a social change in the form of supervision of playtime activities: from the informal, watchful eyes of neighbors on the block, to park employees known as play leaders, and finally, the personal computer, video games and Bugs Bunny. Furthermore, young people’s indoor activities are increasingly regulated by adults in institutional settings such as after school programs, and in virtual environments such the Internet.

It is important, however, to recognize that these social and spatial changes in young people’s play activities are historical trends, and as such, there is a tendency to generalize patterns to present a coherent argument. However, there are always young people who will exhibit behaviors contrary to social norms, even though the historical, cultural and material conditions of everyday life have changed. It is equally important to discuss and analyze exceptions to general patterns. As Colin Ward points out, “every generation assumes that the street games of its youth have been destroyed by the modern city. Yet they survive, changing their form in innumerable adaptations to exploit environmental changes” (Ward 1990, 89). Ward is accurate to emphasize how older generations have the tendency to romanticize their childhood experiences in relation to contemporary social conditions. Children still do play in the streets and in parks and playgrounds. However, today’s children are generally playing differently in different spaces and have less free time than when older adults and seniors were young.

The question is then, what social and material conditions in which outdoor play in public places occurs have changed, which ones have remained the same, and how does this affect the resiliency or deterioration of play activities? The data I collected suggests the following: outdoor play and leisure activities that require little space and few materials, are located adjacent to the home, and which are child-initiated are likely to be found in each generation; however, activities that require spaces other than immediately adjacent to the home must contend with process of urbanization and social evolution, and therefore, are more susceptible to change.

For example, clearing the streets of children was thought to be a necessary action to promote the flow of goods and services in a modernizing city (Goodman 1979). Tranter and Doyle noted a similar historical process in describing children’s loss of the street as a play space in Canberra, Australia. While in the past, children simply learned how to deal with traffic while playing on the street, ultimately, the automobile has reigned as the supreme “owner” of the street. Tranter and Doyle (1996) and Cunningham, Jones and Barlow (1996) consider the willingness of adults to rethink previously-held priorities about the function of the street as a major barrier to reclaiming the streets for young people.

While many children and youth continue to use neighborhood parks and playgrounds in their everyday lives, the degree to which they can enjoy these spaces without becoming subjects of violence or objects of adult concern is highly questionable. In particular, poorer (and often minority) children have less access to both public playgrounds and parks, and privatized spaces such as the pay-for-play facilities afforded by wealthier families (Lareau 2003). Young people also have more options for play than in the past, including technological and commercial mediums that offer seductive alternatives to playing tag on the block.

The erosion of children’s participation in public life raises serious questions about the quality of children’s playtime activities, their rights to the city, their sense of community, and general well-being (Bartlett et al. 1999; Hart 2000). For example, how does a reduction in outdoor play influence young people’s physical health? Similarly, what are young people missing by spending a majority of their free time in institutional settings such as after school programs? The answers to these questions would provide valuable contributions to urban public policy concerned with the well being of children and society in general. Based on the findings in this paper, I recommend that academics continue to conduct research that provides an historical analysis of young people’s everyday lives. It is through such research that patterns of neglect and social transformations become more obvious and powerful as a catalyst for change.

Endnotes

Dr. Pamela Wridt graduated from the Environmental Psychology Program at the City University of New York – Graduate Center in June 2004. Her research interests include children’s geographies, gendered geographies, urban sociology/geography, participatory and qualitative methods and geographic education.

References

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