Asher Joseph photos
Ranezmay (right) and her friends delight in the spouts of water on the splash pad ...
... as volunteers prepare to mulch a nearby patch of dirt.
The sound of rustling leaves merged with squeals of joy and the gurgling of the Kensington Playground splash pad as a light mist wafted through the heavy heat. Despite the stifling smog that hung in the air, neither the Friends of Kensington Playground clean-up volunteers nor the neighborhood’s kids let it deter them from rejoicing in the beauty of a recently saved public park.
The Friends of Kensington Playground, a coalition committed to preserving the Dwight neighborhood green space on Kensington Street between Chapel and Edgewood, hosted a clean-up at the park on Friday afternoon to promote its beautification. The group’s efforts coincided with the reconstruction of Antillean Manor, an affordable housing complex located directly behind the park.
Kensington Playground has been at the center of a nearly three-year legal battle with the City of New Haven over concerns about a different planned new affordable housing development, which the Boston-based firm The Community Builders dropped earlier this June. The Elicker administration announced in a recent legal filing that it no longer plans to sell the 0.67-acre park to The Community Builders — or to any other developer — and will therefore maintain the public greenspace as both public and green.
According to Friends of Kensington Playground member Olivia Martson, prior to the Friends’ conservation push, the space was a haven for drug-dealing and graffiti. As of now, the only semblance of graffiti that exists within the park is on the decorative colorful trash cans situated between each bench.
The graffiti on the trash cans was commissioned to bring more color the park.
Friday’s clean-up was made possible through Yale’s Urban Resources Initiative (URI), an organization dedicated to providing technical advice, grants, and resources to local park associations conducting green space beautification efforts.
Jeffrey Blay, a summer intern at URI and recent graduate of the Yale School of the Environment, helped lead the clean-up as Kensington Playground’s designated URI representative. “This work has allowed me to strengthen my community engagement and help implement sustainable practices, such as planting trees, into New Haven’s urban spaces. I’m amazed by all that this group has accomplished in just two years,” he said.
Jane Comins, a dedicated Friend of the park since 2020, accredited its role as a neighborhood sanctuary to the trees, citing their ability to both purify air — especially at a time when smoke from ongoing Canadian wildfires is hanging over New Haven — and provide refuge from the heat to anyone below their canopy. “It’s probably ten degrees cooler in the park than out there,” she said, gesturing towards the haze hovering above Kensington Street and an unsheltered parcel of land.
The smoke from ongoing Canadian wildfires permeated the sky on Friday afternoon.
“I always see kids playing soccer in that little field,” Comins added. “Just the other day, I saw two little kids playing baseball with a piece of corrugated cardboard for their base.”
Although the park currently only consists of the splash pad and playing field, the Friends intend to install a playscape, an estimated $200,000 investment. Martson noted that 92 percent of the neighborhood is composed of renters and their kids, most of whom do not have backyards, which she said she believes make the playscape a worthy addition.
Olivia Martson and Jane Comins worked together to clear out a pile of leaves.
Comins admired the lively activity on the splash pad on Friday as she took a break from raking leaves to wipe sweat from her brow. “I saw the parks my grandkids were playing in and it just broke my heart, which is why I’m so committed to saving this one,” she said before stepping away to reactivate the splash pad, which had started to garner more popularity as she spoke.
With a stroke of genius, the six kids using the splash pad had decided to cover its drain with a T‑shirt to create a wade pool — the perfect way to beat the heat. Comins took a moment to refresh her face with the water trickling from the rainbow shower installation, which has been broken since the splash pad was first renovated in 2021.
The kids found a new way to beat the heat by creating a makeshift wade pool.
“Now that we’ve saved the park, our hope is that we can fix the rainbow sprinkler on the splash pad,” said Pat Wallace, president of the Friends of Kensington Playground.
After an hour of raking leaves, the group then turned its effort towards mulching a large patch of dirt near the fence, using logs to create a natural border around the area. Comins said she hopes to create a safe environment for the park’s most curious members to investigate nature, whether peeking under logs or jumping over them.
Jeffrey Blay (left) helped lay down logs to create a border for the mulch.
“We would also like to plant and label a few pollinator bushes near the fence, so that the kids can see nature in action,” explained Comins. According to her research, an interest in the natural world is characteristic of the park’s patrons, as evidenced by photographs taken prior to the Friend’s revitalization efforts.
The plan will not only feed curiosity, but the usage of pollen-producing plants will attract endangered insects such as bees and butterflies, which Comins expects to support New Haven’s pollinator population.
Jeffrey Blay and Comins mulching an area near the fence.
By the end of the clean-up, the number of volunteers had swelled from four to ten.
Six-year-old Ranezmay had been watching the groups from nearby as she enjoyed the splash pad with her friends. “I love the splash pad so, so, so much because it’s just like a waterpark! I really like this park, but the splash pad is definitely the best part,” she said.
Wallace looked on with a smile, saying, “We all need a happy place, and that’s really what this whole fight is about.”
See below for other recent Independent articles about how New Haveners use and enjoy the city’s many public parks.
• Believe-It-Or-Knotweed In Edgewood Park With Sierra
• Sprucing Up Peat Meadow Park With AnneMarie
• Tuesday In The State St. Triangle With David
• Monday In Scantlebury Park With Jermaine