Like Golf Courses, But Without The Balls

It’s hard to imagine on a day like today, but in a mere few weeks, you’ll be sitting in Central Park, sans shoes, digging your toes into plush, green grass. Can you picture it? Well hold onto your happy place ’cause that dream won’t be coming to fruition this summer. The city is about to become a whole less green when the [Parks Department replaces traditional grass] with artificial turf—it’s cheaper, it’s easier to maintain and it can be made just spongy enough to prevent serious athletic injury! In addition to the 74 synthetic-turf fields the Parks Department has built since 2002, which are used mostly for football and soccer, the city plans to build another 100 or so in the next five years. The cost of installing the shiny strands traditionally used to stuff Easter baskets? About $150 million, but each faux grassland costs about $15,000 a year less to maintain. So let’s revise that little fantasy: you’re still sitting in Central Park, sans shoes, but this time your toes are rootin’ around in plastic grass laid atop a bed of crushed rubber from old tires. Mmmmm, yummy.

Photo courtesy of [tico24 on Flickr]