The old Lafayette Street School playground in Newark is no longer a parking lot. Students now have a brand new playground and teachers cannot park there as they had been for several years.
It was supposed to be a playground for students at the Lafayette Street School in Newark.
Teachers and staff, however, were allowed instead to park their cars on the asphalt. The practice went unchecked until about six years ago, when angry parents started to question why.
Alumni did, too, after my 2013 story, which painted this picture: Students running between cars on uneven blacktop that caused them to trip and fall; if the children bumped into a car or were too close, they'd get in trouble and have to sit out recess. Playground equipment was lacking, too.
The playground they shared didn't belong to them, but now it does. During a dedication ceremony on Friday, the play area, fully equipped and redesigned, was returned to them by the Ironbound community, Newark Public Schools and the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit conservation group that has developed 12 parks and schoolyards in Newark since 1995.
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"We've been waiting for this since sixth grade," said Kimberly Souza, 13.
The playground now has a synthetic multisport turf field, a huge climbing structure that kids have wasted no time trying out. There also are benches, a new basketball court, an outdoor learning area, trees and a water fountain. One of the most impressive features is a large mural of the school mascot, a falcon with its wings spread wide. Created by Gera Lozano, a graduate of Lafayette Street School, the mural spans the length of the building facing the playground.
Miguel Torres, 13, expected improvements, but he didn't know it would be this much.
"I like it a lot," he said. "It's really nice."
Getting to this point meant ending a parking privilege the teachers had enjoyed. Parents said Principal Maria Merlo had allowed staff to park there so that they wouldn't be late in the morning as they tried to find parking on densely populated streets in the Ironbound.
Merlo said teachers had been parking on the playground before she became principal. It came to an end after parents complained, and when East Ward Councilman Augusto Amador spearheaded passage of a 2013 city ordinance that restricted school playgrounds in the city from being used as parking lots.
"This always belonged to the kids," said Amador, an alumnus. "To turn a parking lot into a playground is a work of art."
Merlo, pleased with the outcome and the playground, said it wasn't a problem for the teachers to stop parking there.
"We resolved that right away," she said.
It wasn't that easy.
John Abeigon, president of the Newark Teachers Union, said he received complaints in the beginning from teachers who were not happy because a benefit they had was being taken away. Now, they park on the street or in a nearby garage, while others may carpool or get a ride.
"It hit hard. They felt it," Abeigon said. "But as teachers, they understood it and they made accommodations. You'd be hard pressed to find a teacher that would be against a recreational area for their students."
Parents should take a bow for being loud about this and not giving up.
They started a petition, consulted the Trust For Public Land and had an architect draw up plans.
Madeline Ruiz, one of the parents involved in the fight, said the district and the school needed to know that it was wrong for the playground to be used for parking.
"We had to make people aware of it. We had to fix this," Ruiz said.
The kids had to make the best of a bad situation. They were not being put first.
"It's good to see the result of all of our hard work," said Maria Pineda DaSilva, a parent. "This is what you get when you fight for something."
It would take money, too, but that wasn't a problem once alumni got involved.
The late Ed Cruz, a 1956 graduate, was the driving force toward building the new playground. Amador said he "lit a fire under my butt'' after reading my story.
Another graduate, Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura, joined the cause and it quickly became a community campaign to raise funds.
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Lafayette Street School meant a lot to Cruz, who came to the United States at 9 years old from Portugal. Before he died in 2015, he talked about how the playground was the afterschool hangout where he learned to speak English and to socialize.
His daughter, Robin Cruz McClearn of Summit, said her dad, a civil engineer who owned a construction company, was upset to see the playground being used as a parking lot and was determined to change that.
Of the $1.5 million it cost to build, nearly $1 million was raised through private donations from foundations, alumni and individuals. The remainder came from the New Jersey Green Acres program.
"The school and the Ironbound community were wonderful partners, and we hope others will now get involved to ensure that the playground remains a community resource for many years to come,'' said Scott Dvorak, director of the Trust for Public Land's Parks for People-Newark program.
The youthful recipients couldn't be happier.
"Can I quote something?" said Breonna Hubbard, 11.
Sure, go ahead.
"Best playground ever."
Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or
nj.com/carter or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL
