COURIER L 36 IFE, DEC. 14–20, 2018 M B G
GET YOUR RAQUET READY: Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 2 will soon have
its own regulation-size public squash court. Public Squash NYC
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BY JULIANNE CUBA
Prep-are to get squashed!
Brooklyn Bridge Park
will soon boast its own public
squash court, according
to leaders of the waterfront
green space.
Meadow stewards are
teaming up with do-good athletes
from Public Squash NYC
to install an all-glass singles
court at the site of one of the
six handball courts at the
meadow’s Pier 2, which also
features basketball and shuffl
eboard courts, as well as a
roller rink, according to the
president of the semi-private
Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation,
which oversees the
lawn.
“We’re really excited about
a relationship that we are developing
with a non-profi t
called public Squash NYC,”
Eric Landau said at a Dec. 5
corporation board meeting.
The park keepers wanted to
bring the game to Brooklyn’s
front yard after they visited
another public squash court
that opened in April in Manhattan,
which is currently the
only regulation-size facility of
its kind in the fi ve boroughs —
and in the country, according
to Landau.
“We went and visited it
and were kind of blown away
by it,” he said. “It’s to provide
yet another amenity in the
park. There is only one other
place we know of in the country
where there is a free public
outdoor squash court, we are
working to do the same thing
here.”
Park leaders will also offer
free clinics operated by Public
Squash NYC workers at the
court when it opens, Landau
said.
The classes, which will be
geared toward under-served
youngsters, will be similar to
those the green space hosts for
kids looking to improve their
basketball game, he said.
“It will be free and open to
the public — free clinics for
anyone who walks up,” Landau
said.
One board member said
meadow leaders should also
fi nd a partner organization
willing to donate racquets
and other equipment needed
to play the sport, so those kids
who can’t afford to buy their
own gear can still play.
“Make sure some of those
kids get their own racquets,
so they can use the courts on
their own,” said Susannah
Pasquantonio, who works for
Brooklyn Heights Assemblywoman
Jo Anne Simon.
Park honchos and cops
this spring beefed up the police
presence at Pier 2, after its
various play spaces drew so
many teens to the meadow in
April 2017 that authorities had
to forcibly evacuate the area.
And in 2016, some locals
demanded Brooklyn Bridge
Park leaders replace one of
Pier 2’s basketball courts for
a tennis court, claiming the
hoops drew too many “criminals”
to the green space.
But trading a handball
court for a place to play famously
preppy game of squash
— which is played similarly to
handball, but with racquets
— had nothing to do with the
crowding problem Landau
said his staff has since gotten
under control, because youngsters
can still play whatever
they want on the pier.
“We had some isolated incidents
over a couple of years, although
it has been a couple of
years since there has been an
incident,” he said. “It’s not a
taking out of a handball court,
it is the transformation of
the handball court to squash,
you can still play handball on
squash.”
Park bigwigs hope to open
the new squash spot by summer
2019, if Public Squash
NYC leaders can raise the
cash needed to build it in time,
according to reps for the group
and Landau.
Squash court coming to
Bklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 2