Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at what might be called Pickleball 2.0 as the off-season replacement for skating at the Wollman Rink in Central Park. This time it’s permanent. We’ll also see what’s in the state budget that the Legislature passed over the weekend.
Last year, pickleball courts were rolled out as the off-season replacement for skating at Wollman Rink in Central Park. The playing surface was like a huge acrylic carpet that covered the rink’s concrete floor.
This year, there won’t be anything between the pickleball players’ feet and the rink itself. The floor is being resurfaced.
CityPickle, which now has a three-year deal for pickleball at the rink, says the new surface will be permanent and will do double duty for the sport, which is sometimes described as the easier-going cousin of tennis. When skating season returns, the pickleball courts will winter, unseen, under the ice. The company also says that the new surface will drain and dry faster after a rainstorm than the acrylic carpet did, so players can get back on the courts sooner.
Pickleball has exploded in popularity during the pandemic, surging to 13.6 million players in the United States last year from 4.8 million in 2021, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. CityPickle’s receiving permission to resurface the rink was “a real vote of confidence for pickleball,” said Mary Cannon, a principal of CityPickle. The company covered the $250,000-plus cost of the resurfacing with Wollman Park Partners, the concessionaire for the rink.
She said it was a significant turning point that the Department of Parks and Recreation, “which is conservative in nature, as it should be, has waved in Wollman Rink as a permanent home for pickleball courts.”
The city parks commissioner, Sue Donoghue, said that allowing a concessionaire to pay for improvements at a city facility was “not so unusual.” The Parks Department oversees about 70 other outdoor pickleball courts across the city that are free and are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
What sets the Wollman Rink courts apart is that CityPickle takes reservations and charges fees — $10 to $12.50 per player, depending on the time. CityPickle and Wollman Park Partners say there are also six court hours a day at $5 per person, a price that includes paddle rental.
Last year, the pricing schedule drew criticism from some players. “The price was almost certainly set with rich people and tourists in mind,” a Reddit user who goes by mavajo wrote. Indeed, CityPickle said that the courts became popular with people visiting the city who were also heading for observation decks, Broadway shows and museums.
CityPickle said that its courts at the rink were in use 73 percent of the time last year and drew more than 56,000 players, a total that Donoghue called “extraordinary.” She said that the “pricing is always a concern” and that the department kept tabs on concessionaries. But she added that the pickleball operation at Wollman Rink “really is aligned with what we want to do, which is provide access to the most up-to-date sports and active recreation.”
The rink has a history: The city awarded Donald Trump’s company the contract to operate it in the 1980s after he refurbished it. That contract was renewed during Michael Bloomberg’s mayoralty, but in 2021, Mayor Bill de Blasio moved to end the deal. Wollman Rink is now operated as a joint venture by Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils; the Equinox Group; and the Related Companies, which developed Hudson Yards.
As a place for pickleball, the rink has its fans, among them Amy Sperling, a retired concert manager. Sperling, who described her age as “50-plus-plus,” said she took up pickleball there last year.
“You’re in a facility where the courts are highly maintained,” she said. “You have locker facilities. God knows pickleball courts are proliferating, but the pavement at other courts could be cracked. If you’re beginning, you don’t want to fall on concrete. I would prefer the safety of a highly maintained court and pay a little bit more for it.”
On Saturday afternoon, more than 50 streets and plazas in New York City were off limits to cars on the first “open streets” weekend of the year. The Yankees lost to the Tampa Bay Rays. And the State Legislature in Albany finally passed a state budget, 19 days after it was due.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City emerged as two of the winners. Hochul used the budget, which came in at $237 billion, to wedge in contentious issues like extending Mayor Eric Adams’s control over schools in the city.
The budget also provides $2.4 billion to support migrant services in New York City. That amounts to an increase of $500 million more over last year’s funding, and it is intended to cover case management, medical expenses and legal resources.
The budget included other priorities for Hochul, like new resources to fight retail crime, a statewide artificial intelligence consortium, and a landmark housing deal aimed at bolstering residential construction — all without raising taxes on the wealthy. The new budget also allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to bolster distressed hospitals, including Brooklyn’s SUNY Downstate, which had been scheduled to close.
The total budget will run $4 billion more than Hochul’s initial proposal, in part because the Legislature shunned her cost-cutting measures. One of those was school aid: Lawmakers turned down a plan that would have allowed for a broad redistribution in aid from districts with falling enrollments to those where enrollments are climbing. Even so, elements of the school funding formula will change, with some districts receiving smaller increases than they had counted on.
The budget also included an expanded definition of a hate crime, in response to episodes since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. Roughly 20 additional offenses can now be prosecuted as hate crimes.
METROPOLITAN diary
Stooping
Dear Diary:
I was doing that thing my husband hates: inspecting trash left on the curb. It’s amazing what New Yorkers throw away. This form of treasure hunting, known as stooping, brings me joy.
It’s good for the planet, saves me money and encourages me to walk. And when I no longer need what I picked up, I can return it to the street without an ounce of regret.
Over the years, I’ve acquired many cherished possessions, some practical, others functional, in unintended ways. One piece, an Italian-made floor lamp in our living room, is literally a fixture in our lives.
On this particular day, I spotted a metal-and-glass shelving unit in perfect condition in front of a building on West 16th Street. I was running late for a doctor’s appointment, so I kept walking.
When I got to the doctor’s office, I daydreamed about the unit. It could be a bookshelf, a makeshift pantry, a display for my daughter’s Play-Doh sculptures.
Returning along the same route, I saw the unit was still sitting there.
Take me home, it beckoned. So I did.
No one batted an eye as I navigated it down the steps at the 23rd Street station.
After getting off at 81st Street, I stopped briefly at the bottom of the staircase before hoisting it up, resting it on my back and climbing the steps.
When I was halfway up, a woman paused to watch me climb.
“You are my inspiration!” she yelled before continuing down and disappearing into the station below. “Keep going, girl!”
She did not see the smile her words left on my face — or the resolve they instilled in me to complete my journey home.
