LYNN — The weather last Thursday was sunny and warm, but not oppressively so.
It was a perfect late summer day to be outside, playing freely, and running around the neighborhood, or perhaps in one of the 30 parks and playgrounds listed on city’s website.
But a check on three of these parks — Gallagher, Kiley and Frey — found that despite the pleasant weather, and with the knowledge that school starts this week, they were virtually empty, save for high school sports teams and Pop Warner football programs.
Though children — generally accompanied by parents or guardians — used the playground equipment, there was almost no unorganized activity.
And generally, that’s the case. The question is why. Steve Babbitt, chairman of the Lynn Park Commission, has one view.
“I just think it’s different today than it was when we were kids,” said Babbitt, who grew up going to Ames Playground, which is near Boston Street. “We’d go there every day as kids to play baseball or to just hang out. Kids today aren’t interested in that kind of stuff. They’re tied up with the electronics, the ear buds, the cell phones. I don’t see them as having the same interests as we did.”
That carries with it other sociological implications, says Nancy Masiello, who works for the Aspire Early Intervention Program (which helps children who have or are at risk of having developmental delays).
“Kids these days are always playing with tablets or phones,” she said, “but electronics can be bad or kids.”
Masiello, who was at Kiley Park with some of her clients, feels today’s kids have a lack of social skills, which she attributes to an obsession with electronics.
“It’s sad,” she said, “and it bums me out.”
On the other hand, Lisa Nerich, Associate Commissioner of Public Works, doesn’t see the parks as being underused.
“They’re used all the time,” she said. “You go by the basketball courts at Breed, or at Keaney, or at Gallagher, you always see kids down there playing. I think we need more parks, actually.”
Others feel parks may be underused in today’s world, but don’t share the same opinion as to why. Lynn’s Breanna Brown of Lynn offers another reason.
“A lot of the parks have mostly old equipment,” said Brown, who was visiting Kiley with her 1-year-old daughter, Anahly Figueroa. “There’s not a lot of new stuff for kids to play with, so they might get bored.”
Babbitt said the city does its best to keep the equipment up to date.
“There’s been a lot of new equipment installed,” he said. It’s impossible to keep up with all the parks at once. We try our best to see what the needs are and to meet them.”
Ward 7 City Councilor Jay Walsh doesn’t agree that the parks are under used. He also said some of the newer equipment, such as splash pads, at some of the parks are very popular in attracting more people (the ones at Flax Pond get a lot of use on hot days). However, he said, those splash pads may not be a viable option in improving all of Lynn’s parks.
“(The splash pads) don’t fit in every scenario in every spot and it comes down to the money available to put them in,” he said.
Then, there’s the physical appearance of some of the parks, a problem both Babbitt and Nerich acknowledge.
“Sadly,” said Babbitt, “a lot of people feel that all they have to do is drive their car down to the park and dump their stuff, and that it’s someone else’s job to clean it up. You see a lot of water bottles and other trash at the parks.”
“People need to start using the trash containers provided at the parks instead of dropping things like bottles on the ground,” she said. Nerich also mentioned how sometimes park maintenance workers will find bags of personal trash from people’s homes that have been dumped at parks.
Walsh credits Nerich with doing as much as possible with a budget of only $156,000, all of which is used to help pay city workers who are sent for trash pick up at parks every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Nerich and Walsh also said that cleanup help from trial court community service and even local community members goes a long way in helping keep the parks clean and appealing to the many families and children who use the parks.
Said Babbitt, the best things the city has going for it when it comes to keeping parks attractive enough for people to want to use, and for parents to consent to sending their children to them, are the neighbors who border them.
“We depend on neighbors who care,” he said. “They’re the ones who police the activity. When there’s more neighbor involvement, you see more things happening in those parks.”
Many of the city’s parks, including Keaney, Frey, Hood, Barry and Gallagher, do see more use once the fall and spring sports seasons start. And three of the city’s five remaining Little Leagues (Pine Hill, Lynn Shore and East Lynn) occupy a corner of Gallagher, Kiley and Keaney, respectively. But those same parks do not see nearly the same amount of activity during the summer.
So, said Babbitt, he sees the parks transitioning.
“We’ve begun given permits for community gardens in some of the parks that don’t see much activity,” he said, “and it’s been a big help.
“But I know it’s not like it was when we were young,” he said. “We were down there all the time.”