Allan Appel Photo
State DEEP calls Criscuolo “a green jewel of a waterfront park.”
The kids suggested adding a water slide and a trampoline.
Not to be outdone, the adults added: How about a kayak/canoe launch where the park meets the Mill River by the Chapel Street Bridge?
They kept going: Why not add to that other features with more relationship to the water? Why not an adult fitness station while you’re at it?
And play structures, including some abstract ones, distributed so the whole park is made use of, especially its riverine setting and spectacular views of bridge and harbor so that it might become a unique destination?
Those were some of the ambitious ideas offered at a brainstorming session to come up with concepts to redesign — and maybe even relocate to a different part of the park — the dreary playground at Criscuolo Park at the corner of James and Chapel streets in Fair Haven.
One of the playgrounds and bathroom/pump house.
To trigger community thinking on these matters, city parks and rec Director Rebecca Bombero convened a gathering at the cafeteria of the John Martinez School this past Thursday evening. The meeting followed a similar session held in Westville about the future of a skateboard park.
The Fair Haven event drew a dozen parents from the nearby private Cold Spring School, where students regularly utilize the across-the-street park as their play area; Elm City Montessori parents from over by Quinnipiac Avenue, and several other Criscuolo Park users from the general neighborhood.
There did not appear to be any parents attending from Martinez itself, the elementary school just up James Street from the park, which has not only up-to-date gymnasium facilities but one of the the school system’s five swimming pools.
Criscuolo Park “is on the top of our list for playgrounds that need upgrades,” Bombero said as she began the meeting.
Young playground designers Sawyer and Roan Christmann.
For the upgrade, she explained, the city had applied for a KaBoom grant. KaBoom is a national organization that galvanizes local groups, supplying expertise, and equipment, and builds playgrounds in a single day of community-wide work.
The city has lucked out in the past, having garnered two such KaBooms, at Westville Manor and on Valley Street at Housing Authority of New Haven communities. But this time we didn’t make the final KaBoom cut, Bombero reported.
A private foundation did recently donate $25,000. That put the Criscuolo playground re-do process back on track, and thus the first community brainstorming session.
The current playground features the little kids section and the 5- to 7‑yearold section divided by an often graffiti-tagged bathroom or pump house. All are near to James Street and within close range of broken glass and other debris and foul balls from the frequently used baseball field.
The park’s historic monument to the Civil War’s 29th Colored Regiment, who trained here.
That’s all why one of the most frequent suggestions was to consider moving the two playground areas from its current spot, bifurcated by the closed building, which often garners undesirable activity, parents reported.
By The Sea Or Not By The Sea, That Was The Question
But move to where?
Megan Craig, a parent from the Cold Spring School, suggested close to the water. Elm City Montessori Parent Magda Natal said she worries about safety there. In any event, the water is rising, she added.
Another parent suggested the park be moved toward the river but not too close, ideally behind the basketball courts, where there is more seclusion and shade from more trees.
How about a splash pad there? suggested another participant.
“This is a day to dream big,” said Bombero. She pointed out that at the suggested new location, beyond the bastketball courts, there is no water line available — while there is at the present location. So that aspect of the suggestion would drive the cost up.
Craig, Bombero, and Moser over park map.
The estimated cost for each playground — a 2‑to-5-year-old area and one for 5‑to-7-year-olds— is $70,000, or about $140,000 total. With only $25,000 in hand, that means a lot more money has to be found. Bombero said the idea at the first gathering was to get the community’s ideas and scale the ultimate budget to consensus elements.
Laura Sheinkopf, a Cold Spring employee, suggested considering benches as a buffer between basketball and the new playground area. Parents have precious few places to sit now beyond the falling-apart baseball bleacher on the Chapel Street side.
Quinnipiac Avenue resident Ian Christmann came to the meeting with his two sons — 8‑year-old Sawyer, who suggested the water slide, and 6‑year-old Roan who preferred a trampoline. Christmann revealed that in the warm weather he often kayaks to the Cold Spring School with Sawyer.
“There’s a calm spot [in the Mill River] tucked in there” at the corner of the park where Chapel bridges the river, he said. He suggested it would be a great spot for a boat launch, and an ideal end point for kayak or canoe races.
“We’ll take it under consideration,” said Bombero, as city landscape architect David Moser took notes beside her.
The park’s only bleachers, on Chapel Street side, will soon be repaired.
“I like wall climbing and teeter-totters that you used to call see-saws,” said Natal, who has three kids at the Montessori school on Quinnipiac Avenue. “You don’t see those any more,” she said and then asked about a merry-go-round.
“No longer meets code,” replied Bombero. Moser explained there is too much chance of fingers and hands to be pinched/ So at least it was clear that the great new Criscuolo Park playground is not going to have a merry-go-round.
Megan Craig asked if the bathroom building — which remains closed most of the time — could be removed. Bombero said that would be hugely expensive. The group then seemed to coalesce around the idea of moving both playgrounds to the area previously discussed beyond the basketball courts.
“If the bathroom has to stay, that’s a strong reason to move [at least] one of the playgrounds,” said Craig.
Fair Haven activist and park designer Chris Ozyck texted in to Christmann suggestions that reflected some of what the group had already been talking about: “Move playground away from the road. Raise ground height so even with pump house building. Shade trees and sail cloth. Maritime theme. More swings and abstract play structures that have less surfaces for graffiti.”
The next step is for Bombero and Moser to refine some of the ideas and call another, more “guided” meeting including a menu of options and costs.
If money can be found for the playgrounds and all goes well, “I’d like to be in construction this summer and be open for next school year,” Bombero said.
Looking out toward’s the park’s fishing pier, and the harbor.
Some improvements to the park long before that, in fact in the very near future, she added.
That’s because the local management team last year voted to use some of the $10,000 reserved for Fair Haven as part of a citywide“neighborhood budgeting” initiative —for park improvements. That money is funneled to each of the city’s management teams through the Livable City Initiative (LCI).
In Fair Haven, the team voted to use the funds to include an upgrade to the fence line along the ball field, repair of the bleachers, and some improvements to the ball field itself, which tends to pool water after rain.
Those should be visible and in place long before the newly envisioned playground. Yet the meeting made clear that the new play area is coming.