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NYC Parks is rushing to build an inaccessible playground in Sunnyside Queens.

A $7 million playground project in Sunnyside is moving forward with a design that excludes disabled kids—and the City won't pause to fix it.

Torsney/Lou Lodati Playground was supposed to be rebuilt to serve the whole neighborhood. Community members specifically asked for accessibility features during the design process. But the final plan still leaves massive gaps: play equipment that requires climbing or balancing, no accessible bathroom, and no changing facility for kids who need assistance.

It's not about one missing swing or a ramp. It's about whether children with different bodies and needs can actually play—move, explore, take risks, make friends. Right now, the design offers some accessible pathways while keeping the actual play experience behind barriers only certain kids can cross.

We're asking NYC Parks to stop procurement and bring the community back to redesign this before construction starts. It's not too late—the park hasn't been built yet.

If this matters to you, consider signing and sharing the petition. What would you want someone to do if this was your family or your neighborhood?

——-EDIT———
These steps were taken:
We reviewed the actual plans, filed FOIL requests and analyzed the records Parks produced, raised these concerns directly with Parks, and sought input from disability-rights advocates and people with expertise in inclusive playground design.

This is what we know:
Accessibility was explicitly identified as a community priority. The current plans identify the public restroom as “Not Accessible & Not in Contract.” Much of the central play experience relies on abilities such as climbing, balancing, crawling, transferring and independently navigating conventional equipment. Parks has also acknowledged that meeting minimum accessibility requirements does not, by itself, necessarily create a truly inclusive play experience.

This is who we have spoken with:
NYC Parks, Council Member Julie Won’s office, Queens Community Board 2, CIDNY, Magical Bridge Foundation, Design Trust for Public Space, the Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement, the Queens Borough President’s office, Assembly Member Claire Valdez’s office, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and other disability-rights and inclusive-design advocates.

And to be clear about what we are asking for:
No one is asking Parks to remove climbing structures, physical challenges or equipment enjoyed by able-bodied children. Inclusive design is not about taking something away from one group to give it to another. It is about providing more ways to participate, so children with different physical, sensory, cognitive and communication needs can play in the same public space alongside everyone else.

The idea that the park should “cater to the masses” while accessibility is treated as something separate misses a pretty fundamental point: disabled children and their families are part of the masses. They are part of this community. Inclusion doesn’t mean building a separate playground for disabled children. It means considering the range of people who will actually use a public playground when it is being designed.

We are not asking the City to throw out a $7 million project and start over. We are asking Parks, before procurement and construction, to bring meaningful disability and inclusive-design expertise into the process, look at what substitutions or additions are still possible, address the inaccessible restroom and changing needs, and make the project as inclusive as it reasonably can be.

And there is a very relevant example right here in Queens. Hunters Point Library in Long Island City opened as a major new public investment and accessibility problems ultimately became the subject of litigation and corrective work. The lesson should be to identify and address barriers before millions of dollars are turned into permanent concrete and equipment.

The park has not been built yet. There is still time to address these issues now.

I’m hoping someone here might be able to give me some guidance.
My family moved to New York a little over a year ago, and since January my wife has unfortunately been involved in three small fender benders. None of them involved significant damage, and we didn’t need to file any claims for damage to our own car, but the other parties did file claims with our insurance.
We’ve always had clean driving records and have never had an issue like this before. I think adjusting to driving in NYC has been part of the problem. Two of the accidents involved taxi cabs that were definitely pushing the boundaries, but ultimately we were listed as the liable party in two of the three accidents.
We have GEICO, but we don’t have accident forgiveness yet because we haven’t been with them long enough to qualify.
I realize our insurance rate is probably going to go up. My bigger concern is having three accidents show up within one year and how significantly that could affect our premium or even our ability to keep coverage.
Does anyone here work in insurance or have experience with something like this? Is there anything that can be done on our end to limit the impact? Anything we should ask GEICO about, documentation we should provide, steps we should take before renewal, or things happening on the back end that most consumers wouldn’t know about?
I’m not looking to get out of responsibility for the accidents — I’m just trying to understand how the insurance side works and whether there’s anything proactive we can do to keep the financial impact from being worse than it needs to be.
Thanks for any insight or advice.

Not a recommendation, just a story

Pro horn player here. MM in performance. Lots of recording sessions for TV, film, and lots of artist work. I never had a big range. Regular high C to Eb was my peak. Honestly never really needed to play up there much unless I had a wedding gig with EWF charts. But I stopped having to do those.

Anyways
I took about a little over a year off the horn after my kid was born. It was crazy for me to take that time off. I practiced pretty much everyday for 40 years. Still worked on music everyday, I produce and write professionally. But no trumpet. When I started back up, I was surprised my sound was pretty much the same, I didn’t forget anything, just low endurance. But I noticed a few things right away. I relied on my ears more, and less on my body and muscle memory/habbits. I was kind of forced to use my ears more because I strength wasn’t there. But I noticed my range was increasing. My first gig back I was hitting double G’s in my solo. Because I was internalizing the pitch rather than thinking about everything my teachers taught me. I realized I’ve been overblowing my whole life because it was always MORE AIR MORE AIR. I was playing quieter with more focus on hearing it in my head. Now a year later my range is now up the the G.

Taking a break allowed that to happen. I feel like stopping actually made me better. Weird

Hey everyone — I’m looking for some advice from people who know more about this than I do.
I’m a producer and trumpet player, and I’d like to buy a bass trumpet mainly for simple home recording and layering horn parts. I’m not looking for a symphony-level instrument, and I’m not planning to gig with it. This would mostly be for tracking one part at a time in my studio, stacking lines, and getting into that lower brass/trombone-ish range.

That said, I also don’t want to buy something that is unplayable. I’m seeing cheaper options from brands like Berkeley Wind, Thomann, and other budget/import models, but it’s hard to tell what’s actually usable and what’s just cheap.

Has anyone here played or researched these budget bass trumpets? I’d love to know:

Are any of the cheaper models actually decent for recording?
Are there specific brands/models to look for or avoid?
How bad is the intonation usually on these horns?
Are the valves/build quality workable, or do they become a problem quickly?

Question for the deep Dilla heads out there:

I have a pretty large collection of Dilla beat tapes that I’ve collected over the years — not physical tapes, but downloads and shared files that have circulated for a while.

I remember at one point there was a YouTube account posting really incredible Dilla beats that didn’t seem to be from the usual beat tapes I already had. It felt like this person had access to some really rare, hard-to-find material, even beyond what a lot of collectors already know.

I also think the same person or page may be on Instagram now. I remember seeing someone share a beat from the account, and it was something I had never heard before. People in the comments seemed to recognize that the page was posting some pretty heavy, rare stuff.

Does anyone know what account I’m talking about? If so, could you share the YouTube or Instagram page with me?

Costco quality, prices, and services seem hard to beat. Would I have better luck in the district? Just looking for simple earrings, nothing custom or super unique. I guess the main thing holding me back is a Costco diamond gift cheesy as well?

Looking for a spot around NYC that has nice vintage jewelry like mid century and up rings, necklaces, and earrings. Not like cheap thrift stuff, more like gold and opal rings and diamonds