And thus ended the construction blog.

Too many blogs! In the future any construction updates will be posted to my Facebook and/or the Hart Fam Blog. Yes, I can hear your sighs of disappointment even now. The end of this blog is truly the end of an historic era. But let us move on together, unified in purpose, with the knowledge that a brave new world awaits our noble blogging efforts. Farewell, dear readers!

morningside nearly done!

We have about 3-4 weeks left, everything should be complete by July 4. Now it's really starting to look nice, after months of site work and utilities that, while interesting, doesn't give the viewing public much to go on. We finished the stone wall about a month ago and that really helped to lend some structure to the view; the asphalt was finished yesterday.




















While I was there today they finished the plumbing work and turned on the water for the first time! Here's the small waterfall:





































It looks pretty good (and better in real life than pictures, of course) . We have to adjust the stone slightly, as well as one of the nozzles, to maximize the amount of water coming over the front, but those are easy fixes.

They also tested the ground sprays in front of the waterfall...



















Yow! No shortage of water pressure here. Fortunately this was also easily adjusted to kid-size.



















Most of the water from the waterfall and ground sprays flows into the trench in the foreground, which creates another place for kids to play with the water. We've put these in other playgrounds before and have proven quite popular.

Bluestone steps in the foreground and a little rock climbing area on the right side.



















Can you see the small table in the background? Here it is up close:



















I'm excited about this piece -- first ever in NYC. We went to a playground in Lexington, KY that had one of these and my nephew-in-law Ben spent nearly the whole time playing with it. It's just a little town with roads to drive Matchbox cars on. Simple, but very effective. They're going to have a community event where kids will paint it (with help, of course).

So, we're almost there. Play equipment should be here this week!

back in action...

Sorry to disappoint the thousands of regular readers of this blog, but not much was happening construction-wise in the last few months. We did begin Morningside Playground last fall, but up to this point it's mostly been excavation and concrete formwork, hardly glamorous. Now at least I can show some of those walls and curbs rising from the ground. Still not much to look at, but you can see the structure starting to come together. The next few months should give us a lot more action -- the park is on schedule to open in June.

HR Ballfield is done! HR Basketball is not...

cliquez ici for a larger image!

The ballfield has been accepted by the Parks Department, and practically all work has been completed. It's not open to the public yet but should be pretty soon. The turf looks great, and while I haven't played on it yet, it feels good under foot. Much better than other types of synthetic I've seen.

Here's the view from the bleachers at home plate. Notice the overlap of mesh in the upper left corner -- that's one of the details the contractor still has to straighten out before they can close out the job.




















I wish I could say the same for the basketball... they have made a lot of progress in the last couple weeks, but I would say at least a month before they get close to finishing.










You can see they have blacktop down now over most of the site, but this is just the binder course -- goes underneath what you actually walk on. They can't put down the top course until the big sports lights go in, so waiting for those is holding everything up.

They do have most of the plants in, which is fortunate since we're now in July (supposed to be done in the spring), curbs and concrete work all done, fencing practically done, and of course the chess table is in if anyone wants to come challenge me to a game. Note that for now we'll have to stand up to play.

harlem ballfield almost done...

The ballfield is cruising right along towards an (almost) on-time completion. It should be open to the public within a couple weeks tops.

The turf was put in all at once and as of this writing is nearly complete. It took them about a week to lay the actual turf, although preparing the ground and utilities has taken a couple months. As you can see from the image, they lay the turf down in giant strips, then connect the strips together. After this is all complete they will add the rubber particles and tamp it all down.





















Here's a closeup of the turf... I used a new type of turf that is much more like real grass, you can see the individual strands here. To my knowledge it hasn't been used in NYC yet so we'll see how it does, but it seems great so far.

The lines were an interesting challenge also. The white fibers of this line are extruded right alongside their green neighbors, so it's seamless. In other places, however, I had lines going at angles or even in arcs (thank you soccer). Those lines had to be cut in and glued on.



















Once the field is complete, we're just down to the details on the perimeter. Walking in front of me here is Heather, our resident engineer on the project who will ensure those details are executed correctly.



















Almost there! I've heard that the community is very excited to start using the field. Now that the turf is going in people stop frequently to ask when they can try it out. Won't be long now.

new project coming up: morningside playground

Morningside Park is linear, 13 blocks long and less than a block wide, situated just north of Central Park and next to Columbia University. It was originally designed by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, but heavily modified in the '50s by Robert Moses' people to accommodate active recreation. One of those Moses-era "improvements" was to cram a huge concrete slab into what was previously a naturalistic open lawn with large-stature trees. This slab held a playground, spray shower, sandbox, basketball courts, and a bathroom/maintenance building, among other items. Now, over fifty years later, it's fallen into heavy disrepair.
















view of the slab from the street... complete with attractive chainlink fence













shot of the south end of the slab. it extends for about three city blocks north. my site is in the foreground, right about where that little evergreen tree is (it will be transplanted, don't worry).

So it's been my honor and challenge for the past few months to design a new playground that will be lots of fun for the increasing numbers of neighborhood kids, but also fit in with the historic landscape. In the process I get to demolish about half of that evil slab and restore it to lawn with big trees, with my (much smaller) playground tucked in at the south end. The other half of the slab will be addressed in a future phase.

Here's my plan...














view from above. because of large elevation change between street and park, this playground will have several levels. you can also see here the big play equipment thing I designed, some smaller pieces for younger kids on the right, a big spray shower (orangey area) with waterfall off that top level. this playground will also have lots of natural stone -- you can see some of the climbing boulders there in the bottom center which came from the park -- and lots of planting, not shown so much here.














view from the street. behind the playground is a huge cliff, on top of which is Columbia.















inside the playground.


















spray shower... it's changed a bit since this early image but you get the idea.

ok, that's probably too much info on this one... but I've been working on it for awhile. it goes out to bid in a few days, and if we get a good bid -- construction should start in another couple months.

harlem river basketball also progressing...

This project is less complex than the ballfield, but some labor issues with the contractor caused them to fall way behind for a while. Fortunately they have put forward a huge effort recently and were helped by some unseasonably good weather here in NY, so now they are almost back on schedule.

















Like the ballfield, they now have all the curbs in place.





















One side is a moderately large retaining wall which was a little tricky. It was almost done when I took this photo so it should be complete by now. I'm sure it'll be a great canvas for graffiti, like every wall in the city, but that is the way it must be. Hey, maybe it'll be cool graffiti.

And finally, a couple shots from the groundbreaking ceremony in November...

















Before the program started, Parks Commissioner Benepe led the waiting masses in a rousing chorus of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song. I guess his kids like the show a lot... so apparently he pulls that out sometimes when there are lots of kids present. I was honored to have my park qualify as SBSP-worthy.


















Here's Comm Benepe with local residents and various politicians digging the ceremonial first shovelful. The residents seemed pretty excited for their new park. We'll see how they like the Yawning Chasm of Doom that I slipped into the contract at the last second.

harlem riv baseball in progress

May not look like much, but they've completed most of the removals and installed nearly all the curb. This all takes a fair amount of work, and once complete, sets the stage for the good stuff that's coming.






















nice straight curb, they did a pretty good job on these. you can see it is pre-cored for the fenceposts.

















curb crew hard at work

















remember those ugly bleachers from the previous post? this is all that's left. The plywood box contains the electricals and have been weatherproofed. At first they tried removing this with a handheld jackhammer... after a day of that and getting almost nowhere through the thick concrete, they got a big jackhammer that connects to a backhoe. Then it was like cutting through butter.

Overall they're a little behind schedule at this point but I am not worried yet. They're working hard to get back on track. Stay tuned to see how it turns out.

Harlem River Baseball

The Fates, for reasons known only to themselves but probably for entertainment purposes, saw fit to have me assigned to two separate projects right next to each other -- with virtually the same name. But it gets even better. The Harlem River Basketball site, introduced in a previous post, was originally supposed to be a baseball field. It was switched at the insistence of the community to a redesign of the existing facilities, ie basketball and handball. About the time this switch happened, we got funding to redo the baseball/football/soccer fields right next door. The contract numbers for these two projects, used for internal site ID, are just one number off. So, I am constantly explaining the difference between the HR Basketball and HR Ballfield sites, even multiple times to the same person. The bureaucracy is not well-equipped to handle such confusion. Laugh it up, Fates.

Anyway, so there's a ballfield on the other side of the 3rd Avenue Bridge from the HR Basketball site. Presently, there are two baseball diamonds with a lot of space in between, which is often used for soccer and occasionally football. The field surface is natural grass, theoretically, although it gets used so heavily that by the end of the season the grass often starts looking quite dodgy. Last year there wasn't even any grass left by the end.

















panoramic view of one of the diamonds








On one side of the field is a mammoth 60's-era concrete and brick bleacher. The parts that remain are often used as beds, or bathrooms. Not very pleasant. There was no opposition to the idea of removing this. See that little black door in the lower right corner? Yes, it's a door. What's inside?
















Electrical components, that's what! All the controls for the 100' high sports lighting poles are in here. So, I'll be demolishing most of this structure, leaving all the controls intact, then building a new, smaller structure around the controls. Tricky. By the way, it was really creepy in there. Spiders and egg sacs all over the place. We did not linger.
















Here's what I proposed for the site. The grass will be replaced with synthetic turf, a new kind that feels quite a lot like real grass. It's much, much tougher however. The synthetic turf was not my idea, it came from above. At first I was skeptical, but I think in this situation it makes much better sense than natural grass. The fences and bleachers will be replaced with more suitable components, and I'll green up the perimeter with various plantings.


















A perspective view... in this shot you can see the Harlem River Drive beyond the field, then the Harlem River, and the Bronx on the other side. Note: all the cars in this picture are '69 Camaros.
















View from home plate... it was tricky to figure out how to have striping for two baseball diamonds, full-size football, and full-size soccer, all on the same field without being confusing. I hope this strategy works. I've set it up so that (in theory) you could play a casual game with the striping that's there, or for a serious game, use the tick marks to stripe it with chalk so you don't have to measure it out.
















Construction began on this job September 11, so construction photos will be coming soon!

369th ribboncutting! The end!

This is it for the 369th! Today was the ribboncutting ceremony (actually more of an unveiling, no ribbons were physically cut). Quite a few people showed up, around 150 maybe. Various elected officials vied with each other to take credit for the project. Parks Commissioner Benepe was there to run the show. Overall it was a good end to an intense but interesting project. The vets seemed very happy, which is really the most important thing in the end.

Some photos from the ceremony...
















left, Eddie the GC; middle, Joe, main subcontractor; right, some weirdo.




























the two towers... you can see the empire state way down 5th ave.



























color guard ceremony... included french colors with la marseilles played

























parks commissioner benepe speaking. he does a pretty good job.

























French consul-general Francois Delattre speaking. He was also quite good, eloquently expressed gratitude to the US and the 369th for their service to his country.






















the local news cameras were rolling.




























Nicholas was more interested in the 5th Ave pavement. But how many 11-month olds do you know that have sat down to play in the middle of 5th Ave?



























So that's it.. yet another new place in NYC has been created for use by its denizens. I hope they enjoy it!