New York City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe oversees the 29,000 acres and 4,000 properties that make up the five borough park system. Since 2002, he has been in charge of 1,000 playgrounds, 550 tennis courts, 600 ball fields, and 54 swimming pools. All in all, his domain encompasses about 25 percent of the city’s total area, and in crowded New York City, it’s land that needs to be used by as many of the City’s inhabitants as possible. At least that’s what Benepe thinks, and it’s what led him into a whole new way of looking at parks — a vision that gave some in the Parks Department’s legal department pause.

Most of the 1,700 parks and recreational facilities in the system get far less use than the two most popular, Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. So Benepe set out to find a way to attract more people to all of the city’s parks, but particularly to those that were chronically underused. If walking paths, dog runs, bike trails, children’s playgrounds, and bucolic settings weren’t attracting visitors, he needed to offer something new, something unexpected, something edgier.

His solution: an adrenaline-pumping adventure course complete with a rock wall for climbing, a zip line for zipping, bungee-cord like plunges from utility poles. Nothing like it was offered in the park system. When he made his proposal, however, he discovered that the department’s lawyers could see nothing but a sea of lawsuits from injuries sustained by bungee jumping, zipping, rock climbing citizens. An adventure course that was going to cost $500,000 to construct, the same as a children’s playground, could turn into an expensive liability. In 2004 alone, the parks department paid out $8.4 million in awards for personal injury claims in parks — parks with simple park activities. In order to open the adventure course and keep costs down, concessions had to be made. Users would have to sign liability waivers and the adventure course would have to be tightly monitored. To get the waivers and manage the public while they were using the course would require special rules. It would basically be closed to the public; open only on Sundays and holidays. But companies and organization could pay a fee to use it on the remaining days. To make sure every activity is executed properly and safely, a coterie of specially trained urban park rangers would oversee the course whenever it was in use. Although for many who might be looking for an edgier experience, the fact that all elements are designed for anyone from the age of eight and up isn’t exactly compelling. If the lawyers could be won over by the protection of liability controlling paperwork and tight control, Benepe would have found a way to bring a new constituency — and additional revenues — into the park.

With the plan finally okayed and the money in hand, Benepe looked around for the right spot and settled on Alley Pond Park in Central Queens. The park, the eighth biggest in the system, could easily offer a small section of its 655 acres to the cause. He hired Park Adventure, a top ropes course builder to construct the project, which included a zip line that drops from a 45-feet high platform through a small stand of trees to the ground, and 40-feet telephone poles from which a harnessed and tethered stalwart can fall backwards on a kind of bungee cord.

So far, it is too soon to declare the course a success in attracting the public. Of greater concern is the need to attract business and organizations willing to pay handsomely to use the facilities. For $350, public school and non-profit youth groups of up to 30 participants can rent the course. But the real payoff comes from professionals who are looking to use the course for professional development and are willing to pay from $2,000 to $7,500, depending on the size of the group. These fees would help cover maintenance costs and the hefty personnel costs. Ralph Pereda, the adventure course manager has “high hopes” that this business will meet expectations, but the booking records point in a different direction. In its first year of operation, from July 3 to November 25, 2007, only 2,171 people tried the course. This year it has been open since May 1 and has attracted 3,938 visitors, an 80 percent increase over last year, most of them paying customers. And while the increase is remarkable, the total number still falls short of the total capacity. With the same schedule and the same number of facilitators, a program running from May 1 to the end of November should be able to serve around 9,000 participants, more than twice the current rate. Still, if the course continues to grow at an 80 percent annual rate, bucolic may give way to bungee in more city parks.

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