Playground Ban Makes it Hard to ‘Make New York Your Gym’

Last month the city’s health and parks departments launched “Make New York Your Gym,” an effort to get more residents to take advantage of the array of physical activities available in the city, particularly in its parks.

Of course, some of us have for years been making New York parks our gym – quite literally. Beating the crowd by heading there early in the morning, we do incline or decline push-ups with our feet on the benches, step-ups on the stairs, triceps dips off the curb, and pull-ups, chin-ups and leg lifts using the empty equipment at the playground. (Check out this guy, who’s a little more successful at it than most of us.)

Allison Pelissier teaches "liquid Yoga" in the Hudson River along Manhattan's west side. Photo Courtesy of Allison Pellisier

In the past couple weeks, however, there’s been a lot of attention to the fact that these latter exercises are illegal: Adults without children are not permitted in playgrounds in city parks.

If every New York City park can’t have its own little adult fitness area, maybe the playground could be adult-friendly for a couple hours in the early part of each day. After all, do we want to run the risk of scenes like this playing out in the subway instead?

Read the rest of this post at City Limits.