{"id":189599,"date":"2026-04-08T14:27:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189599\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:27:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:27:39","slug":"report-finds-stark-recreation-deserts-in-brooklyn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189599\/","title":{"rendered":"Report Finds Stark ‘Recreation Deserts’ in Brooklyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Two Brooklyn community districts have been identified as recreation deserts, with residents lacking access to enough sports fields, courts, and pools compared to citywide averages. Photo by Brennan LaBrie<\/p>\n

by Brennan LaBrie, Brooklyn Paper<\/p>\n

Brooklyn might be home to some of New York City\u2019s most famous parks, but it also has some of its starkest \u201crecreation deserts,\u201d according to a recent report<\/a> by the Center for an Urban Future (CUF).<\/p>\n

Much like a food desert, in which a community lacks reasonable access to fresh and nutritious grocery options, residents of \u2018recreation deserts\u2019 live in areas with minimal recreation opportunities.<\/p>\n

Out of the five community districts identified as recreation deserts in CUF\u2019s report, two are in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

Brooklyn\u2019s Community Board 12 \u2014 which covers Midwood, Borough Park, Kensington, and Ocean Parkway \u2014 has only 41 facilities, compared to a citywide average of 150.<\/p>\n

\"peopleBrooklyn\u2019s McCarren Park offers open green spaces, baseball fields, and basketball courts, but like many areas in the borough, nearby neighborhoods still lack enough recreation facilities for all residents. Photo by Brennan LaBrie<\/p>\n

Community Board 9, covering Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Wingate, has 48. In comparison, Community Board 3, which encompasses part of Bed Stuy, has 190.<\/p>\n

The facilities these communities lack include soccer and cricket pitches, volleyball and pickleball courts, and pools. In order to find them, residents often have to leave their neighborhoods. This can block low-income households from activities that are key to mental and physical health, said Eli Dvorkin, CUF\u2019s editorial and policy director and co-author of the recreation report.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrooklyn has always been a place where movement is part of daily life. But today, Brooklynites, like all New Yorkers, are moving less, feeling more isolated and dealing with elevated rates of chronic diseases,\u201d Dvorkin said. \u201cAnd at a moment when recreation should be central to the borough\u2019s strategy to address these challenges, we\u2019ve been investing less in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding for recreation in the city has fallen \u201cdramatically\u201d in the last 50 years, going from 31 percent of the NYC Parks Department\u2019s budget to just 5.3 percent today, Dvorkin said.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s preliminary budget allocates $654 million, or 0.5 percent of the city\u2019s budget<\/a>, to parks. This is just half of the 1 percent he promised on the campaign trail, and cuts $33.7 million from the current Parks budget. Mayor Eric Adams also signed onto the 1 percent promise while campaigning, before making several major cuts to the department.<\/p>\n

\"anThe Red Hook Pool in 2025. Photo by Susan De Vries<\/p>\n

The mayor remains committed to the 1 percent for Parks pledge, and plans to leverage his proposed tax on NYC\u2019s wealthiest residents to achieve it, Deputy Press Secretary Jeremy Edwards told Brooklyn Paper.<\/p>\n

Dvorkin said NYC Parks must also commit at least 20 percent of its budget to recreation, which would move NYC closer to cities like Chicago and Philadelphia, who respectively spend 25 percent and 37 percent of their parks budget on recreation.<\/p>\n

New Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura has expressed a commitment<\/a> to boosting the city\u2019s public recreation programs and upgrading facilities. \u201cNYC Parks is committed to delivering high-quality recreation amenities for all New Yorkers, especially in areas that have typically been underserved,\u201d a Parks spokesperson told Brooklyn Paper.<\/p>\n

Participation in recreation programs has declined significantly in recent years, with visits to the city\u2019s 36 recreation centers down almost 40 percent since 2019. This does not reflect a lack of demand, but rather an underfunded system that can\u2019t keep up with it, Dvorkin said. Less investment means less staffing and upkeep, which means less programming and open facilities. Meanwhile, waitlists for children\u2019s recreation programming keep growing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe overall result is a system that\u2019s not keeping up with Brooklyn\u2019s needs and in many cases is limiting participation at a time when Brooklynites need it most,\u201d Dvorkin said.<\/p>\n

\"peopleCommunity members rallied outside the Metropolitan Recreation Center in March, calling on city officials to restore the pool that\u2019s been closed for over a year. Photo by Brennan LaBrie<\/p>\n

Over the past 50 years, recreation staff has fallen from 2,000 to 660, Dvorkin said. Swimmers have felt this decline acutely, as a persistent lifeguard shortage<\/a> has shut down pools citywide each summer since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Maintenance issues have also contributed to a dramatic drop in citywide pool use since 2019.<\/p>\n

The pool at the Metropolitan Recreation Center in Williamsburg has been closed for over a year<\/a> as the city repairs a faulty dehumidification system, which members say has left them without an affordable local swimming venue. Yearly memberships at Brooklyn\u2019s nine rec centers top out at $150 a year, while gyms with pools can cost upwards of $300 a month.<\/p>\n

When Metropolitan\u2019s pool shuttered, it left only one other indoor public pool in Brooklyn<\/a> \u2014 almost an hour transit ride away in Crown Heights. This is a public health concern for a borough with several beaches but few indoor pools and no mandated water safety instruction<\/a>, advocates say.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you don\u2019t have access to these facilities, it\u2019s a recipe for tragedy,\u201d said Michael Randazzo, who provides free and low-cost swim lessons at private pools in Flatbush.<\/p>\n

\"map<\/p>\n

The Sunset Park Recreation Center has been closed for construction since 2023, and a broken pipe shut down the Red Hook Pool most of last summer. Although it opened for the final few weeks of the outdoor swim season, Randazzo observed a large portion of it closed off due to a lack of lifeguards when he visited.<\/p>\n

However, progress is being made across Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

NYC Parks has committed $3.5 billion to building and upgrading recreation centers, pools, and assets like fields, courts, and skateparks, a spokesperson told Brooklyn Paper.<\/p>\n

The pool and gymnasium at the Brownsville Recreation Center are under renovation, and the $141 million Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center became the borough\u2019s largest rec center \u2014 and the first in central Brooklyn \u2014 when it opened in February<\/a>. It also brought a long-awaited indoor pool to Flatbush, with the ability to host competitive swim, dive, and water polo teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you put a pool of that quality in a community that hasn\u2019t had a public pool since the \u201860s, it\u2019s transformational,\u201d Randazzo said.<\/p>\n

These rec centers are a \u201cpowerful example of what\u2019s possible,\u201d Dvorkin said, but adds that the scale of need for facility repair \u2014 which CUF estimates to be at least $400 million \u2014 dwarfs the Parks Department\u2019s current resources.<\/p>\n

\"pool\"The Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center\u2019s competition-size pool this year. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

Dvorkin credits NYC Parks\u2019 summer day camp program, which offers season-long activities to kids for $500, as a model for accessible recreation. CUF is calling on the program, whose admission is by lottery, to increase its capacity from 500 to 5,000 students.<\/p>\n

Nonprofit leaders like Randazzo and Nzingha Prescod, founder of the nonprofit fencing academy PISTE<\/a>, say defeating recreation deserts means going beyond summer camps to offering year-round, competitive programming.<\/p>\n

\u201cCamps offer great exposure, but we\u2019re totally missing the mark on providing a continuous high-impact sport community,\u201d said Prescod, a Flatlands native, two-time Olympian in fencing, and 2015 world bronze medalist.<\/p>\n

Prescod\u2019s East New York-based institute provides \u201chigh-dosage\u201d training, something she said she lacked growing up, along with academic support to over 700 children each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rigor of doing sport continuously and competitively over time changes who you are, your capacity, your endurance, your ability to fail and try again,\u201d she said. \u201cYou need to develop these skills to fulfill your potential and to maximize your personal impact and how far you can go in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prescod envisions neighborhoods like East New York becoming incubators for elite talent, which she says will require much more investment from local government.<\/p>\n

Dvorkin is excited about the possibilities for funding and growing recreation. A few ideas from the report include integrating recreation facilities along the forthcoming Interborough Express<\/a> line, offering free recreation classes to library card carriers, and having doctors prescribe recreation as preventative medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn so many ways, recreation can be a major part of the solution to so much that ails us as a society,\u201d Dvorkin said.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: A version of this story originally ran in Brooklyn Paper. Click here<\/a> to see the original story.<\/p>\n

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