Sara D. Roosevelt Park

Co-authors: Connie Lui, Natasha Masub and Pranitha Prabhu

Contents

1. Introduction to Sara D. Roosevelt Park
2. History of Sara D. Roosevelt Parka>
3. Daily Recreation
4. Events and Festivals
5. Reflection
6. References
 
 
 

1. Introduction to Sara D. Roosevelt Park

1. Introduction to Sara D. Roosevelt Park

Sara. Roosevelt Park is located in the Lower East Side of Chinatown along several streets such as Chrystie, Stanton, Broome, Hester, etc. Because of it’s prime location of being right next to Grand Street Station, the park is used daily by students of neighboring schools, parents and their children and those who live in the neighborhood.

 
 
 

2. History of Sara D. Roosevelt Park

 
 
 

3. Daily Recreation

Taichi

Sara D. Roosevelt Park is an important place where we saw parks recreating place for New York City immigrants. As a space for Asian immigrants to practice Tai Chi, the park was able to recreate place for immigrants. Here we can see the the elderly practicing Tai Chi in the basketball courts. They practice Tai Chi there on a daily basis. Some live in the neighborhood while others travel from other parts of the city to the park to practice Tai Chi with their fellow friends.

Tai Chi also shows us how the park is shared among both the children and the adults in the park. In the background of the top left picture you can see how there are kids in the background playing basketball. The space in the park is peacefully shared.

Soccer

The soccer field at Sara D. Roosevelt Park is a unique opportunity for visitors to enjoy an open space in the midst of busy Chinatown. What we were surprised about was that there were not that many Chinese people using the soccer field and it was predominantly Caucasian. It showed us how the park was not only used by those who lived in the neighborhood but those outside the neighborhood traveled there to make use of it’s facilities.

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There are two soccer fields that are part of the park, one right in front of the Grand Street station and a South End soccer field next to a school. Those who play in front of the Grand Street station park are usually not part of the community while those who play in the South End soccer field are from the neighborhood and usually attend the school next to it.

Basketball

The basketball courts is one of the busiest facilities at Sara D. Roosevelt since not only children play basketball there but adults use the space for other things as well. We interviewed young players at the basketball courts.

“We usually come here after school on most days and play basketball for a while.”

 

 

Handball

The handball court is the most popular part of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Since handball is a predominantly Asian sport, a lot of teenagers go there for competition.

One boy we interviewed said “I like coming here to play handball a lot since there will always be people here to challenge you. Even after a rainy day like today, the handball courts will still always be crowded.”

The handball courts were the most crowded in the park. You can see in the picture how people wait on the side for their turn to challenge the winner. Outside of the courts there were also a lot of people sitting on the benches interested in watching how the matches would turn out.

The Playgrounds

The extensive playground at Sara D. Roosevelt Park allows hundreds of children to enjoy the park on a daily basis. The playground is where much of the diversity is seen at Sara D. Roosevelt—children of all ethnicities and backgrounds can be seen playing together. The playground was one of the most interesting parts of Sara D. Roosevelt Park. It was if things that don’t really exist anymore were all built into the park. Throughout the park, there are multiple playgrounds scattered along the multiple blocks it’s on. Each playground in the park had it’s own unique charm.

One thing that surprised us, was that it had a sandbox. We remembered how the rangers from Jamaica Bay talked about how it’s rare to see sandboxes and seesaws in park these days because of the hazards.

 

Parents gather at the playground together to talk about their kids and their day. Usually the same families come to the playground with their children and through their kids they meet fellow neighbors.

One parent we interviewed said, “Since I live close by, I usually bring my son here everyday so he can play and I can relax a little bit.”

 
 
 

4. Events and Festivals

13th Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade and Festival

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Earlier this year on Sunday, January 29th, Better Chinatown Society held it’s largest Lunar New Year Parade in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. It was estimated that there was 500,000 spectators. The event was even covered by Sinovision, a Chinese language television program. From the picture you can see how the park was completely covered and filled with tents and spectators.

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People from all backgrounds came to the park to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Not only did they celebrate it as a spectator, many non- Chinese citizens came to participate in the performing acts of the day. In this picture you can see two Caucasian females still in their stilts from their performance of the day.

 

 

 

The basketball courts of the park are also where the fireworks for the Lunar New Year are traditionally set off. The park goes through a huge transformation as Lunar New Year approaches.

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On the day of the festival the park is emptied so that people can set up the fireworks for the firework ceremony. When preparations are done, the park is filled up and the dragon dances begin. At the end of the day the fireworks are set off causing the park to erupt in smoke.

 

 

3rd Annual Tang’s Natural New York City Dumpling Festival

Besides the huge Lunar New Year Festival that occurs every year, Sara D. Roosevelt Park is home to many other festivals. One interesting one is the Dumpling Festival that was held in the park on September 17th 2011. This festival brings different cultures together as dumplings from different ethnic groups compete against one another.


From the picture we can see how a large part of the crowd isn’t even Chinese yet they all gathered in the park as spectators. The Dumpling Festival also includes  the 8th Annual Chef One Dumpling Eating Contest. In this contest, participants will try to beat the record of 66 dumplings 2 minutes. The park not only provides as a place for recreation but also brings people together for events like these.

Junior League

Besides fun festivals that occur in the park, many organizations have offered a helping hand to Sara D. Roosevelt Park. One of them was the New York Junior League. Over 1,000 volunteers got together to help recreate the park. The volunteers planted 7,000 bulbs, 400 perennials, 300 shrubs and 12 trees. Not only did they plant things, but they also repainted the whole park and got rid of weeds. These people who get together to help the park show us how important the park is to their community. Junior League shows us how the park and it’s community interacts with each other. Without the park, people wouldn’t have a place to have fun and without the people in it’s community, the park wouldn’t be able to flourish all these years that it did.

 
 
 

5. Reflection

  • “This project was very interesting and really brought together everything that we had been talking about during the entire semester. Sara D. Roosevelt Park is a prime example, in my opinion, of a park that recreates place for New York City immigrants. The park, situated in the middle of Chinatown, is an important place for Chinese immigrants to socialize and use the park for activities like socialization and Tai Chi. I found it interesting that although the park is located in a Chinese neighborhood, there is still a diverse population using the park. Lastly, the project forced me to explore a part of New York City that previously I was very unfamiliar with. The whole experience was a very new and rewarding experience.”

    • – Natasha Masub

    • “Working on this project brought back so many memories for me but also showed me a lot of things I’ve never known before. I’m familiar with the park since I used to go to Chinatown a lot when I was little. It wasn’t until last year when I worked with Junior League to recreate the park, did I realize that the name of the park was actually Sara D. Roosevelt. I’ve never bothered to explore the whole park and only saw it for it’s superficial appearance which was a park with handball courts, basketball courts, soccer field, basically a typical park. Doing this project though allowed me to broaden my views on the park. I never knew the park had tire swings and a sandbox in the playground. When I saw it, I wanted to go play myself. This project also showed me just how important the park was to the community. The people we interviewed took pride in the park and the park had become a part of their daily life with kids playing there every week, parents bringing their kids there and the elderly doing Tai Chi.”

                             – Connie Lui

    • “This entire semester we have been focusing on how immigrants recreate place and the discussions have been guided. To go out into the real world and see exactly what we have been discussing is a great feeling. It is weird how all this time, its all been there, we have just had to uncover it. People have as much of an effect on their environment as the environment has on them. This project made me step out of the neighborhoods I know and love and venture into a park I had never even heard of. The experience was so interesting. The first time we visited was right after a heavy rain and it was amazing how many people were already out on the park grounds, playing soccer or sitting on a bench. Even though the park was near Chinatown, there was still so much diversity. It showed me how the parks have allowed the many cultures found in New York City to thrive and coexist and it is definitely a factor in making the city a true ‘melting pot’.”

    – Pranitha Prabhu

     
     
     

    6. References

    6. References

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