Tag: Vesuvio Playground

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Lunch in the Park in winter?

It’s FUCKING fridgid in NYC and I hear it’s going to drop more in the next week. I enjoy the option to work at home and wonder the neighborhood to find chill spots to people watch, read and take a break from the work day. One such spot is Vesuvio Playground on Thompson. It’s my playground for free tennis practice in the spring/summer and a good spot to watch the tourists, models and locals wonder off the SOHO strip mall. I’ll be waiting for the spring in 4 months to hit this spot again.

Unfortunately the bakery the park is named after is still closed and just last month it was found, up for sale. It will be missed less for it’s expensive coffee and breads but as a very cozy local Italian bakery to hang out in the winter time, read a historic biography or grab a classic cannoli.

The notice of apology and commitment to reopen which has still not been realized since Vesuvio’s closure in mid-2008.

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Construction for renovated playground displaces kids and bums alike

Vesuvio Playground is across the street from my apartment at the corner of Spring and Thompson. It’s was a classic NYC playground, and a hot-spot of neighborhood activity– lots of kids playing on the swings, old people sitting on the benches, and high-school kids playing handball in the yard.

Sadly, it’s been under construction for about six months (ground breaking was back in May), and the project isn’t due to finish until late next year! All the old people have been displaced to the stoops across the street, and the high school kids are just lounging up against the fences. I think it’s a disgrace that the city low-balls these park-renovation contracts. There’s never been more than two or three guys working on the site at any one time. And anyway, all they have done is replacing the fencing rehabbing the concrete surfaces– a competent company should have been able to finish the job in about three weeks. Instead, the city accepts the lowest bid, from a company with two employees, and the project ends up disrupting the community for a year. Ridiculous– it would never happen in a neighborhood with better local organization, like the West Village or Park Slope– but because SoHo is totally dysfunctional, we’re just going to have to live with it.

I think when it is finished, the neighborhood will rejoice in the new pool facilities for kids (I’m not allowed unless I am supervising a rugrat), refinished handball and basketball courts and some new padding for all those scuffed knees n elbows playing on the new jungle gym thingys…