DailyHeights

Check out some of the big money being thrown around for jungle gyms these days…

1. The the budget for the teardown/rebuild of Underhill Playground (Underhill Ave. Btw Park and Prospect), underway after months (years?) of delay, is said to have a budget of $700,000. To be fair, that’s about what you’d pay for a floor-and-a-half of unremarkable PH brownstone these days. Yet at the same time, enough to feed an entire Peruvian village for 80 years and still have enough left over to buy half of them associate degrees at CUNY.

2. So now that we have some perspective, let’s take that number and double it, because that’s what the persistent Friends of Dean Playground have pulled down for their renovation project. Thanks, Mr. Boymelgreen. (Learn more about this on Thurs., Dec. 1 from 7:30-9:00 pm at the meeting of the DEAN STREET BLOCK ASSOCIATION, to be held at Iglesia Evangelical Latina, 506 Bergen Street.)

So what’s a Prospect Heights parent to do while waiting for the seeds of playground gentrification to bear fruit? You could check out Mount Prospect Park, a short trek across Eastern Parkway, where on any given weekday afternoon you’ll find a relatively new and fairly elaborate toddler habitrail supervised by a gaggle of Caribbean babysitters (along with some mommies and the occasional stay-at-home dad).

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