Public Employee Press

Union team designs award-winning park

An award-winning new park in the South Bronx combines history, imagination, and skillful design. A team of union professionals from the Dept. of Parks and Recreation created Printers Park Playground, transforming a barren site of asphalt and rubble into an oasis of beauty and fun.

The play equipment is modeled after a rotary printing press, the sand box is shaped like a gear and the fountain or "spray shower" delights children in the summertime. Recycled and local materials abound, including granite blocks from the West Side Highway and bench slats of domestic White Oak.

Local 375 Landscape Architect Stephen Koren, the lead designer and project manager, loves to drop by the park to see how the plants are doing, observe the landscape changing over time and watch children playing in the spray shower "and using equipment in ways I never imagined," he said.

Koren said the site's history is referenced in the design: Richard M. Hoe's invention of the rotary printing press in the 1800s speeded printing and cut costs. At the corner of Aldus Street and Hoe Avenue, the park is on the grounds of Hoe's former estate, Brightside.

"This project was designed, engineered, and construction-supervised by an in-house team of Parks employees - all Local 375 members," Koren said. The team included designers Nette Compton, Patricia Clark, Kathleen de Monicault and James Mituzas and the construction duo of Fred Hammerling and Robert Winstead.

"It's great to know that our members create such wonderful parks for the enjoyment of the community in a safe and healthy environment for generations to come," said Local 375 President Behrouz Fathi.

Local 375 Secretary Jon Forster called the Parks' teams, "the country's premier landscape design firm" and said, "There is no rationale for farming out the work."

On April 3, the American Society of Landscape Architects presented one of its highest awards to Koren and the team.

"Winning the award confirmed for me that the in-house design work that Parks is doing is just as creative and progressive as private design firms or consultants," Koren said.