Disney Moves In, Gets Comfortable
The City Parks Department is [teaming with Walt Disney] to launch a pilot program to equip playgrounds with sand, water and so-called loose parts in addition to the traditional swings and jungle gyms. Back in January, we posted on a new [South Street Seaport playground](http://www.nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=51431442&day=10&startmonth=1&startyear=2007), complete with play workers and movable parts, and in June on the sophisticated [Frank Gehry playground](http://www.nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=8324606) to go up on the Battery in Lower Manhattan. But now that Disneys in on the deal, were pretty sure all these promises of imagination cultivation will come to fruition. Disney is sponsoring the program by donating materials and funding, as well as providing staff to monitor safety and, um, persuade children to play.
Nancy Barthold of NYC Parks & Recreation said, We provide carts and blocks and fabric and rope and stretch their imagination a little bit more than they might usually. Hmmm, and yet its not really imagination if you put on a princess dress and lock yourself in a towerthen you really are a prima donna.
Meanwhile, an MTA board member said yesterday that [renting subway trains and stations] to corporations such as Disney could raise tens of millions of dollars a year and help to avoid the [fare hikes announced yesterday](http://master.nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=93597514). I would rather try to sell 42nd Streets subway system underground to Disney for $60 million a year and have them paint it any way that they want to paint it, MTA board member Norman Seabrook said yesterday, adding that he will approach Disney to gauge its interest in renting high-traffic subway stations such as Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station before he would vote to approve a fare hike.
If only they had a little more imagination, they mightve thought of this sooner. After all, its not like bombarding New Yorkers with ads is all that creative. Talk about the Disneyfication of NYC.