Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 1’s Red Hot Steel Domes Covered Up

By on April 7, 2010 2:58 pm in Government, Kids, Lame Excuses

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Brooklyn Bridge Park officials placed tents over steel domes in Pier 1’s playground because they become red hot in midday sun.  The NY Daily News ran a story today saying children were crying out in pain after touching the shiny objects.

Raw video from WPIX-TV after the jump.
 

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  • James

    While they’re shading the domes, could they also fence off the swings like at every other playground in the neighborhood? I don’t want my kid wandering into the path of a heavy swinging weight right at the level of his head, if I happen to take my eye off him for second.

  • DrewBurch

    Classy!

  • Homer Fink

    I really love Pier 1 but those domes seem to be a really weird – if not reckless – decision.

  • cat

    Oops! Kids love to play on those sorts of domes–they’re very cool–but someone could have thought more seriously about the material used. I have a feeling they are not long for this (particular playground) world.

    And the note on the playground fence is hilarious. They think those spindly little trees are going to provide enough shade to cool off those domes?! What spin! The shade at Pierrepont playground MIGHT provide enough shade. LOL at that one!

  • grr

    Love Pier 1, but agree that the playground is a missed opportunity. Sigh.

  • my2cents

    The minute I saw those on opening day I said to myself, man those are going to get burning hot in the summer sun! And I was right!I can’t BELIEVE that if an average person like me could make that connection in 5 seconds, the designers of the park didn’t think about that issue. What a ridiculous oversight! Also, what a lame park toy, too. What are you supposed to do on there anyway? Bring back jungle gyms, I say. Let’s show these sissy kids how to “really” get hurt!

  • anon

    We originally thought the metal mushrooms were sprinklers, or were covering something much better underneath. Sad to see they are just nothing.

  • cse

    I thought the domes seemed pretty stupid, too, but our toddler loves them and has endless fun on them. I don’t understand it, but kids do. Agree that the construction material could have been better planned.

  • WillowtownCop

    Design rule #1: form follows function.

  • anon
  • x

    bring back See-Saw, slides, , merry-go arounds, monkey bars

    And none of these BS new age mushroom domes.

  • milton

    hey, this is Brooklyn. We don’t want our kids playing on sissy suburban play equipment. what next? lawns and flowers? the hot domes helps the little ones prepare for dealing with subway platforms and electrified manhole covers.

  • anon

    This is what happens when design trumps utility and function. When the community is left out of the process. When an “economic development corporation” designs a park and not a parks department. Will the waste in time and money never end with this “park”?

  • No One of Consequence

    My kids also really like(d) to play on those things. I don’t really get it either, but who cares.
    My kids also like the squishy surface and those weird spinners.

    However, this mini-park is much to small and really doesn’t need to be situated in such a prime spot (near the water with the best views). Once the park is in full-swing, this playground is going to be so crowded as to be unusable.

    I also question the plans for the pier 6 playground. Based on what I’ve seen it also appears that it will be too small and experimental. I have to say that “Swing Valley” just sounds dumb and will probably be the site of many swinger-walker collisions.

    Seems to be to be a case of over-thinking instead of thinking like a kid.

  • http://bivforbrooklyn.com Doug Biviano

    http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/04/08/2010-04-08_girl_hurt_on_domes_parents_remove_bklyn_park_orbs.html#ixzz0kVzZ6jcH

    The Daily News ran a follow up story where one our PS8 kids broke her nose and lost a tooth on the domes on opening day. Her parents sent a letter dated March 23 stating that the domes are not safe. What happened to her is absolutely awful, yet predictable.

    Upon our first visit to the playground on a cold rainy weekend in late March, we feared the slick wet surfaces would be a problem as our kids pranced about them. Despite the cold, other parents and friends immediately identified that they’d be super hot in the sun. As the other BHB reader mentions, we also noticed the lack of fencing around the swings as we have a 3 year old. The domes were so odd and the curves of the matting more complex than functional that beyond anticipating injury they stoked larger concerns that I have had for the park.

    Frankly, the domes are just one of the smaller examples of an abstract park design detached from community input (despite the plans of the community dating back 20 plus years) and would be users of the park. In this case, it resulted in injury and most definitely in waste as well. Stock Stainless Steel items are a real fortune, never mind custom architectural shapes. Are they going to be removed and scrapped or are we to rely on seedling trees to grow in salt-air on water’s edge? Remember what happened to the trees with the saltwater waterfalls?

    But the real waste — and perhaps a primary reason the park is hundreds of millions of dollars in cost and needs to be built in phases — is all of the fill and earthwork to build three-story mountains on the waterfront that look as unnatural as a landfill on Jamaica Bay. Landfills and berms are simply not natural features on river fronts and I wonder why they were ever part of the design elements and continue to be in this economic crisis.

    To save tens of millions of dollars in waste, there is still time to scrap the three-story berm planned to run the length of Furman Street. Instead, two affordable baseball diamonds can be built or some other active use features determined by the community stake holders, not architects and Albany run development corporations.

  • T.K. Small

    I cannot tell everyone how sorry I am to have read the link that Doug provided. When I initially saw the steel domes it struck me that the domes could get slippery and a kid could break a tooth or a nose. The fact that this specific injury has occurred was completely foreseeable. Simply outrageous!

  • No One of Consequence

    Remember that thread a few weeks back where we discussed how much the park design cost? http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/16465

    Come back and defend the design of the little playground.

    My guess is that this “innovative” park will have several more short-comings as each section opens. No, not everything can be perfectly planned, but the playground is such an albatross (and about as wide as the wingspan of one) that I’d be surprised if there aren’t several more (Swing Valley?).

  • Publius

    The domes are gone!: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/the-domes-are-gone/?hp

    $84,000.00 wasted, and an undisclosed amount spent on replacement fixtures (likely about as much).

    Will the Starchitect replace the approximately $150,000.00+ mistake out of the $18,000,000.00+ fee his firm earned? Or will the taxpayer suffer so the Starchitect firm can learn on the job?