Doug Biviano – Danger at Pier 6

By on June 13, 2010 8:44 pm in brooklyn bridge park, Kids, Parents, Video

Doug Biviano: Danger at Pier 6 from Heather Quinlan on Vimeo.

New York State Assembly candidate Doug Biviano contacted us about safety issues with the newly-opened Pier 6: In addition to the knee-skinning gravel surface and bad sight lines between playground sections, Biviano also pointed out jagged boulders, potentially dangerous equipment and spots where he felt safety was sacrificed for design. He explains more in the video above—watch and have your say below.

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  • http://loureads.com Lou

    What was the cause of the accidents you saw?

  • No One of Consequence

    my2cents, I suppose you wear a helmet when you ride your bike?

    “Thrills and spills.” So why are you complaining about pedestrians in your way? Why do you need some sissy bike lane?

    You talk about irony, but yours is so ridiculous that I had to post (which you will see me doing a lot less of, but that’s a different story).

  • ABC

    At Pier 6 I saw a kid step off the water table thing in the sand box. He was standing on top busy playing and just stepped back and off .. that’s not a small drop. He split his chin on the cement on the way down At Pier 1 I saw a girl climb the dome, fall off the dome and onto another kid. She cut her cheek pretty badly — not sure on what.

    Maybe the kids climb on things the designers didn’t anticipate being climbed?

  • cat

    Kids will climb on anything given the opportunity. Any playground designer should know this.

    Re: “So even if some people think it looks unsafe, that doesn’t mean it is.”
    my2cents, do you have young children? I’m just curious because anyone looking at the playground can point out to you all the unsafe elements for kids.

    My daughter is a risk taker and has been since she could walk. I have tried not to hold her back and to let her challenge herself. There are some great elements to this playground–she loves it and we are there almost every day. But there are some things that make my hair stand on end when I think of how easily she could crack her little 5-yr.-old head open.

  • C’mon

    Biviano went for low-hanging fruit here.

  • Bon Scott

    Oh god … Everyone – Just shut up. You too Doug. Whiniest non-issue having blog post. Until the next one

  • Bon Scott

    also … Doug just lost my vote

  • Beatrice

    Pier 6 is a gorgeous playground, but it does have some dangers. Within 2 minutes of entering the water lab, my son slipped while walking and landed on his head. He was not running or goofing off, just walking from point A to point B. A fall like that could have caused him to lose consciousness and drown in the water there. Thankfully, it did not, but he wasn’t the only kid I saw slip in there that day.

  • Mike

    What a nation of babies. What ever happened to taking responsibility for your own choices and actions? Do you really think the bureaucracy can keep you out of all harm’s way? Do we really need to encourage more lawsuits?

  • Angus Young

    (I couldn’t resist the AC/DC reference)

    I assume that people who self-identify as playground designers probably got into that position by designing numerous playgrounds over the years. This would mean that they are probably already either a landscape architect or architect by training – not some kind of magical specialist with distinct professional standards.

    Most playgrounds that you see are “designed” by having people from parks department, parents, or designers sit down with representatives from the big play equipment manufacturers (Gametime, etc.) and pick things out of a catalogue. As a parent, I appreciate the fact that these manufacturers have worked very hard to put together a catalogue of relatively fool-proof equipment, but I am not always impressed with the results – it all ends up feeling a little cloned. Pier Six is awesome because clearly there was a lot more creativity going on here than just carving out an area, calling in Game Time and then taking a vote on the best color scheme or the “theme”.

    Regardless of who is in charge, there are standards for playground design that certainly had to be followed here as they would have to be followed in any playground — these have to do with fall distances between objects, depth of safety surface, distance of the ground for certain elements, height of the opening on top of a slide, etc. The standards don’t eliminate all risk from play (which is okay, because learning to take risks incrementally is something kids need to learn to do, as many here have pointed out), but they are used to address the most frequently identified hazards that have arisen in playground design over the years (for instance, the splintery creosote play structures that I grew up with wouldn’t have passed muster, but neither would have the super cool long chained swings on my school playground).

    Oddly, the two pieces of play equipment that have earned the most criticism on this blog – the Archimedes screw and the stainless steel domes — are both commercially produced items. Which is to say, they have been designed by industrial designers who specialize in play equipment, not by the landscape architects. I believe that both of these are by european companies, but I don’t think that they love their children any less over there.

  • ABC

    I think the people who are saying this is all nonsense are people who haven’t taken kids to this playground.

    As a parent, I would like nothing more than to sit in the shade with a book and half an eye on my kids. This is not possible for a variety of reasons, one of which is that there is no place to sit at Pier 6 and see your kids. The sight lines .. well, there are no sight lines. So parents are forced to follow their kids around and if you have two kids, forget it. And making parents follow the kids around instead of sitting on the sidelines really adds to the crowd. My kids have had broken bones, stitches, the works. I’m okay with that — I dont want my kids living in a bubble. I just think there was a missed opportunity here.

    My kids will go here a lot and they’ll learn to avoid the surprise boulders in the sandbox and remember not to step backwards off the water table. I know Joralemon is better than Atlantic. But it’s a destination park and for first time visitors, it’s a tricky park.

  • tb

    He lost my vote too.

  • nabeguy

    Angus, given that the lead designer of BPP is named Van Valkenberg, I don’t think mentioning that the most problematic elements in the two parks come from European companies does anything to advance your argument. In fact. it sounds as if any and all American companies were deemed too “cloned”and thus rejected. You obviously seem to have some inside knowledge of the process, so please show us the guidelines that these parks were supposed to adhere to, and let us judge (or measure the drop-distances) for ourselves.

  • LaDiDa

    I was accosted by Doug at Pier 6 the other evening and this just guarantees he won’t get my vote. I’ve taken my two children to the playground five times now. They love it. I love it. I have not seen anyone bleeding and being hauled off to LICH. Surely Doug has his friends writing comments here now. It’s pitiful that he would take such an adversarial approach before he’s even collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot.

  • kirkaldy

    Not to call anyone a safety hypocrite, but I saw Mr. Biviano riding his bike the other day without a helmet. Before he starts shedding crocodile tears about imaginary “hazards” at the playground, perhaps he should focus his attention on his own approach to personal safety.

    This ridiculous little clip leaves me with a clear impression of what a phony he is. He will never get my vote. The helmet thing may seem trivial to some, but it is a fact that part of a parent’s responsibility is to set a good example for their kids and also to preserve their own personal safety.

    Mr. Biviano’s motivations here are extremely suspect and it seems incredible that he brought his kids into this great park to play and then spent his whole time fretting about so-called “jagged” rocks (even in the video you can see that this description is entirely overblown!).

    If I have learned anything as a parent it is that children learn through play and there are certain kinds of places that seem to open them up to fun. The play choices are great at Pier 6, and although it may be possible pick at the details, I don’t see any “glaring hazards” (to quote the video). It has actually been laid out very thoughtfully. It is a big big playground which is what we needed and which might mean that you need to keep a closer eye on your kids, for instance establishing rules with the older ones about staying close, etc. If some people prefer a small playground where there are just a few pieces of equipment, there are plenty of places like that around. Furthermore, it sounds like the Archimedes screw, which my son loves, is from a play catalog and has safely been used before. Perhaps Mr. Biviano should have investigated this a little before fear-mongering about children being “sucked down” into the water.

    To be honest, a bigger safety concern for me with respect to kids is the way the bicycles have been brought into the park – many bikers are polite, but there is a fairly large contingent who don’t have any respect for pedestrians and pose a big threat to small children, who move around in unexpected ways, and are harder to see when you are perched up high and travelling very fast. Why aren’t bikes just part of the street system like they are everywhere else in Brooklyn? Why are the bikes even allowed in the park?

  • jora-lemon

    Not sure what the landscape designer’s last name has to do with anything. And if you were trying to imply that it’s a “European” name (although I’m not sure why that matters) you should know that I’m pretty sure he grew up in upstate new york.

    The thing that bugs me most about this video is the blatant political calculation behind it, which went something like this: “Biviano is looking to get publicity for his political campaign + the safety concerns at the Pier 1 playground got tons of press + there’s nothing that journalists like more than to wring another news cycle out of an existing story by adding a new wrinkle to the narrative they constructed = If I claim that the Pier 6 playground is unsafe, it’s a sure fire way to generate some free publicity for my campaign, no matter the fact that these “concerns” do not pass the smell test or have any real basis in reality.

  • naidre

    While the park, in general, is a fantastic addition, there ARE some design flaws. Actually more than Biviano mentioned. The biggest problem right now is overcrowding, since it is new and has a big water attraction. I’ve seen many kids (including my three year old son) slip and fall- and fall hard!- because the surface is slick and on a hill. The many rocks and boulders surrounding it add a whole additional layer of danger. The lack of any shade structures is also a glaring oversight. They say that the trees will provide shade, but that will take 3-5 years!
    SO, even though it is a really fantastic park, more thought should have been put into how kids actually play on the attractions. It IS a playground for kids, right??

  • Sharon Berg

    I went to Pier 6 yesterday and it really is beautiful. I was watching my 3.5 year old really carefully while she splashed around at the bottom end of the “screw” thing (because you can see how a foot could easily get caught in it), when the girl playing next to her screamed out as her foot got caught in the bottom end of the screw and twisted around. The kids up top were happily turning the crank and probably wouldn’t even have noticed what was happening what was going on down below had I not screamed at them to stop.

    Amazing park, but few changes need be made before some kids are seriously hurt.

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