Need to Cool Off? There Is Water at These Parks!

The weather is heating up, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities for kids to have fun in the sun while keeping cool. There are several unique, local parks in the neighborhood that feature water-play for children. Check it out.

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Brooklyn’s third oldest park is a 1.87-acre gem named after Charles Carroll (1737-1832), an American Revolutionary leader and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Carroll Park is one of the more spacious parks in the area. It features two gated playgrounds – one that is designed specifically for toddlers and the other that accommodates older children. The toddler playground is complete with an elephant structure that children can sit on, while the more mature playground is complete with a tire swing. Both playgrounds have age-appropriate swing-sets.

Between the two playgrounds on the eastern side of the park are four spray showers, each displaying one of the four cardinal points on a compass that children love to run through on a hot summer day.

Playing in the sun for hours could be exhausting so if you and your child need replenishing, there are plenty of places to grab a bite to eat on the outskirts of the park. The park is complete with areas to sit and eat, basketball hoops, bocce courts, water fountains and restrooms.

DiMattina Playground

This 1.9-acre park is located on Hicks Street between Woodhull Street and Rapelye Street. DiMattina Playground is broken up into two sections and was named for Vincent J. DiMattina (1915-1966), an attorney who took an interest in the civic and religious affairs of the surrounding Brooklyn community.

Unlike any of the parks with spray showers in the area, DiMattina Playground features four spray showers that look like giant, red hula-hoops. Water is sprayed out from the inner-middle of the hoops so that children can sprint through them to cool off.

The park is complete with a playground made up of two jungle gyms that resemble ships, a swing-set, a dog-run, water fountains and restrooms. DiMattina Playground has several benches that border the playground area.

Mother Cabrini Park

At just under a half-acre, this is one of the smaller and calmer parks in the area. It honors Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), a Roman Catholic Missionary and is located on President Street between Van Brunt and Columbia streets.

Mother Cabrini Park features a single spray shower in the center of the park that sprays water up and out in an umbrella-like fashion out of more than a dozen tiny spouts. This parks spray shower does not match the much larger run-through spray showers in the area, but the park itself is intimate and mellow.

Mother Cabrini Park is complete with a playground that features a tire swing, a swing-set and several benches that reside in shaded areas underneath large trees that border the park.

Van Voorhees Park

Close by is one of the larger and more accommodating parks in the area. Located between Columbia, Hicks and Congress streets and Atlantic Avenue, this park honors Tracy S. Voorhees (1890-1974), an attorney and World War II veteran, and his family’s early contributions to the City.

At the center of Van Voorhees Park are four blue spray showers that resemble upright snail shells. The water-spraying snail shells are fairly distanced from each other, so it is easy and safe for many kids to run through them at once.

The park is complete with substantial playground areas, swing sets, handball courts, tennis courts, water fountains and restrooms. Van Voorhees Park is spacious with a few garden areas and there is a spot by the entrance of the park with benches in a shaded area beneath the trees.

Boerum Park

This nearly 1-acre park on Warren and Baltic streets between Hoyt and Smith streets honors Simon Boerum (1724-1775), whose family farm occupied the surrounding area in the 18th Century.

Boerum Park’s spray shower that is positioned in the center of the park is one of the more creatively themed in the area. At the core of the spray shower fixture is a beehive that sprays water up from its top and surrounding that beehive are three bumblebees propped up on their wings with their stingers pointed toward the hive. Water sprays out of the insects’ stingers as children sprint through them.

Boerum Park is complete with playgrounds, swing-sets, a basketball court, a tennis court and water fountains. There are not many places to sit and eat, but there is a picnic table and a few benches bordering the parks turquoise and purple play equipment.

Nicholas Naquan Heyward Jr. Park 

This 1.04-acre park is bounded by Hoyt, Wyckoff and Bond streets in Gowanus. Although this park is quite spacious, its design is less pleasing. There are very few garden areas and benches and its spray shower consists of a mere pipe-like spout at the center of the park that sprays out water.

The park is a part of the Gowanus Houses housing project. Right next to the Houses there is a fairly small separate section of the park that features a second spray shower. The Gowanus Playground is complete with basketball courts, handball courts, swing-sets, water fountains and restrooms. In the toddler section of park is a dolphin fixture that children can sit on.

At 2.52-acres, this is one of the larger parks in the area. The park is located on Third Avenue between Douglass and Degraw streets in Gowanus. This park actually has two names, Douglass Greene for its location, and Thomas Greene, for local community activist, Thomas Greene (1911-1988).

The park is unique in the sense that it does not contain a spray shower, but it does have two age-appropriate outdoor pools. The pools open for the season on June 29 and are free to the public.

This park is complete with picnic tables, playground equipment, plenty of colorful benches that reside beneath the trees, basketball courts, handball courts, water fountains and even a camel fixture for children to sit on.

Douglass Greene is in the process of and is trying to raise more funds for a complete overhaul.

The Water Lab

Located at the foot of Atlantic Avenue at Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, this is unlike any of the previously listed parks. The Water Lab is truly a child's oasis, and on a hot summer day this park can get extremely populated.

Pier 6 features a 1.6-acre playground that is complete with innovative water-play, a swing valley, slides, climbing structures and other playground equipment.

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The Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy maintains the Water Lab. Water is turned on manually sometime between 9 and 10 a.m. and turned off by 8 p.m. on days that are without rain and above 80 degrees.

All of the previously listed parks are maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The spray showers at the parks are manually turned on by a mobile crew at 8 a.m. and are turned off at 7 p.m. on days when the temperature is above 80 degrees.