Althouse: "The Parks Department sees an old, decaying, noncompliant place. We see versatile, high-quality, high-performance equipment."

October 26, 2026

"The Parks Department sees an old, decaying, noncompliant place. We see versatile, high-quality, high-performance equipment."

Said Salo Coslovsky, an associate professor of urban planning, quoted in "New Fight at Gritty Manhattan Park Is Over ‘Punk Rock’ Pull-Up Bars/The Parks Department has a $10 million plan to renovate the northeast corner of Tompkins Square Park, but fans of its workout bars want things to stay just as they are" (NYT).

The idea that it's "punk rock" comes from a personal trainer, Danny Kavaldo: "People don’t come here to get the newest, shiniest equipment; people come here because it’s Tompkins Square Park. There’s an energy you can feel, it’s gritty, it’s punk rock, it’s the East Village."

16 comments:

Jamie said...: For the entire twelve years that we lived in our shockingly Norman Rockwell neighborhood outside Philadelphia, there was a (surprisingly not too rusty) steel slide that was universally called the Spiral of Doom. It was about 15 feet high and came down in a tight coil; its ladder was relentlessly vertical; it was one million degrees in summer and bare flesh would stick to it in winter. All our children played on it. The 10% of residents who had lived in the neighborhood as children themselves and then moved back in, on purpose, were its staunchest defenders.

It's gone now; the new families who moved in at the last turn, the one that moved us out, just couldn't hang.; 10/26/26, 10:07 AM
R C Belaire said...: How the F can you spend $10 million on a park partial "renovation?" I guess in NYC anything is possible.; 10/26/26, 10:19 AM
FredSays said...: ….because we have $10,000,000 laying around to renovate a park that the neighborhood likes, as is. Why not? Not my money.; 10/26/26, 10:28 AM
Hombre said...: NYC has nothing better to spend $10 million on than renovating a park? How about Mamdani’s Grocer Store? À new mosque?; 10/26/26, 10:36 AM
Hombre said...: 10:19: ‘How the F can you spend $10 million on a park partial "renovation?"’ Think, “Democrats, money laundering, kickbacks, fraud.”; 10/26/26, 10:40 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/26/26, 11:00 AM
Peachy+2 said...: Democrats sit an think of new ways to waste tax payer money for their mob-grift operations. 24/7.; 10/26/26, 11:00 AM
loudogblog said...: I'm not a big fan of upgrading just for the sake of upgrading. Not everything needs to be replaced with something new and often, the new stuff is actually less useful than the old stuff and doesn't last as long. And are they actually going to replace the exercise equipment or get rid of it because of the legal liability? Instead of pull up bars, they might just put in something that is so "safe" to use that it's actually useless for a hard workout. Maybe a nice, flat, rubber slab to do Pilates or pushups....; 10/26/26, 11:00 AM
Joe Bar said...: Surel there must be a way to appease both sides. It will just take more graft.; 10/26/26, 11:01 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: The best gyms are the ones with older equipment. The new stuff sucks (usually range of motion is limited...not adjustable enough like the old Hammer Strength etc.). Furthermore, the more used it looks the more legit the gym because the clientele is more serious and the less they tolerate chicks in scrunch-butt tights. Keeping it as dingy and soviet as possible keep them away.; 10/26/26, 11:01 AM
loudogblog said...: And yet again, we see someone using the term, punk rock, as a generic, catch all adjective for something that they consider, unique, but can't exactly define.; 10/26/26, 11:05 AM
Ampersand said...: After the Giuliani administration with its broken windows policing oversaw a massive 56% drop in violent crime during the 1990s, The New York City left longed for a return to those gritty punk rock days when the East Village was too dangerous at night without a baseball bat and an aggressive Doberman. (I remember, I was there). They will get their wish. When you long for more entropy, you're betting with the house.; 10/26/26, 11:41 AM
Big Mike said...: [Sigh]. And then a piece of that old equipment will break, someone will get hurt and sue the city for a ridiculous sum of money, and the NYT will demand to know why the equipment had never been upgraded. We’ve seen this scenario before.; 10/26/26, 12:00 PM
Rabel said...: The exercise yard is good for the inmates. Lets them work out their frustrations. I'd add a free weight area.; 10/26/26, 12:04 PM
RJ said...: Why spend $10M on the park? Because there are connected contractors out there that need to be fed.; 10/26/26, 12:49 PM
Biff said...: I'll always associate Tomkins Square Park with a gruesome murder in 1989 where the victim ended up on the menu for some members of the park's unwitting homeless population. Bonus Sunny Hostin connection to the story.

The park does have its charms now, but when I was a Manhattan resident in 1989 and the early nineties, it was a place that sent strong "stay away" vibes to most relatively normal people. The irony is that the squalor that led to the park's closure in 1991 is now standard fare on the streets of many American cities today.; 10/26/26, 1:32 PM