A group of Brooklyn politicians representing orthodox Jewish neighborhoods have defied Mayor Bill de Blasio's coronavirus closure of playgrounds and staged a series of protests this week in which they broke the locks and attempted to open various playgrounds.
That group, which includes State Senator Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, and Councilman Kalman Yeger gathered at Dome Playground in Borough Park and Kolbert Playground in Midwood this morning to break the chains at both places. They were joined by radio host Heshy Tischler, who declared at Kolbert, "Welcome to our park everybody. Come on in. We're going to open up every single park in the entire city, no matter if you're Jewish or not." (City parks have remained open during the coronavirus PAUSE, but playgrounds were closed.)
"The only way you're getting these chains back Mr. Mayor, is if you're coming to get me," Tischler said after they opened up Dome Playground.
They also posed for photos while playing on a swing set there.
This wasn't the first such actions being taken to reopen playgrounds in Brooklyn this week: on Monday, a group of community leaders, which also included Tischler, opened up Williamsburg's Middleton Playground, as you can see in the video below.
“How long can we keep our kids in prison?” one mom of six, who declined to give her name, told the Post. “I don’t feel like I live in a free country.”
The park was closed back up afterwards, and a Parks Department employee said in a statement, “At this playground, a temporary measure was used to shut the playground after it was breached. It will be unwelded today and replaced with a lock.”
Asked about the playground protests at a press conference Tuesday morning, de Blasio said, "We're not going to allow people to take the law into their own hands, it just doesn't work. So people are not allowed to open up a playground that is not yet available to the public. It's for a reason."
While the mayor said he was sympathetic to parents dealing with kids who have been cooped up for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, he said there would be no changes in policy with playgrounds until phase two begins. Phase two could start as early as next week (June 22nd), although he cautioned that he thought it would take longer than that.
One reporter pointed out that many children are already playing together out in the streets, so wouldn't it be safer if they were able to do so in playgrounds? De Blasio stressed that kids should not be playing with other kids who aren't in their households, and reiterated that the playgrounds would be figured out in phase two. "I'm hopeful we'll be able to open things up, but we're not there yet," he said. "The minute you say okay, let's open the playgrounds, then a lot of kids come in contact with a lot of other kids, and adults come in contact with other adults, then the disease starts spreading, and that's what we don't want, this is the thing that'll take us backwards."
Felder, Eichenstein and Yeger released a joint statement attacking the mayor for not opening playgrounds despite their pleas, and vowed to continue cutting locks as long as they had to.
"Individually, each of us exhausted every avenue of diplomacy in our effort to open our playgrounds for the families and children in our city. We advocated sincerely and respectfully, hoping for a willing partner," they said. "The people have spoken and they are sick and tired of being ignored. With everything going on in the world, why is our Mayor intent on making criminals of mothers and children in need of a safe space to play? If they lock these gates, we will cut them open again tomorrow, because we serve the people. Who do you serve, Mr. Mayor?"
Right wing politicians and personalities from around the country are now using the controversy to make a bad faith argument comparing the Black Lives Matter protests to the playground videos—in which almost nobody is seen wearing any masks or taking any social distancing matters. Some also claim, without any evidence, that the mayor's decision to keep playgrounds closed is somehow anti-Semitic in nature, despite the fact that this is a citywide policy, and there are people protesting the policies in other parts of the city as well.
