New Haven Independent

Tennis Court Fix-Up Set

by Leonard J. Honeyman | June 18, 2009 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Tennis usually is played either on grass or a hard surface. Players like Rhonda Johnson who use certain New Haven city courts get to play on both, and don’t like it one bit.

But that will change at two city parks in time for next season, parks commissioners were told at their monthly meeting Wednesday night. The courts at East Shore Park will get a complete makeover and those at Edgewood will be refurbished, a process that should keep them from cracking for at least 30 months, said Robert Levine, director of parks, recreation and trees.

In a visit Wednesday evening, the Edgewood courts were replete with cracks running parallel and perpendicular to the flight of the yellow tennis balls. All were filled with two-inch-high grass, and some along the borders of the individual courts had more significant growth of various plants, some a foot high.

The courts were damaged in 2007 storms.

“Look, it looks like hedges are growing there,” said Larry Waters of New Haven, standing in photo, who is recovering from hip surgery and is “just a spectator for now.” He chatted with Bruce Hargett, who said he also was a spectator but seemed to be holding court from his chair at the west side of the courts. They were joined by Lee Davis, a downtown resident who said she had just vanquished a foe at a Yale court and had come to play at Edgewood.

The fix-up comes as a result of the one change aldermen made to the mayor’s proposed budget for next year. They sliced off $55,000 that was earmarked for Tweed-New Haven Airport and added it to $100,000 already in hand, to pay for the work at both parks. The job will go out to bid in about a month and should be completed before winter, said Levine.

Players at the busy Edgewood park courts were delighted with the news that the cracks in the seven hard-surface courts will be filled. Levine also promised that the work would not produce a “dead zone” where the cracks were covered over.

“That’s exciting,” Davis said, especially about the dead-zone problem, where the ball does not bounce as lively as it otherwise would.

They said they were a bit disappointed that their courts would not get the full treatment that East Shore will. At that park, the surface will be cleared away, the underlying concrete milled and the courts paved and the surface painted. That park had the interim filling in of cracks done in 2006.

Other bystanders claimed the Edgewood courts are the busiest in the city, an assertion that seemed to be borne out by the number of people playing late into Wednesday evening. Each court was busy, and there were many cars in the parking lot off West Rock Avenue.

The filling of cracks and other surface work carry a 30-month guarantee, so the work will be reviewed once that runs out to see if the courts need a complete redo as East Shore did.

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Comments

Posted by: anthony | June 18, 2009 12:49 PM

it'd be nice if, instead of fixing up tennis courts, we used the money for fixing up our public schools. tennis is nice and all, but seriously?

Posted by: jay | June 18, 2009 1:18 PM

I think this is a great idea!!!! Our Park's are our biggest asset in this City. We need to spend more money fixing up our Park's and ensuring that they stay as great free places to spend with friends and family's.

Posted by: Beansie's Mom | June 18, 2009 1:44 PM

Anthony,

Get a grip. One and half BILLION dollars. We've spent plenty on schools. Everyone deserves REC spaces. Most of us in New Haven can't put a Tennis Court in our backyards.

Posted by: anthony | June 18, 2009 3:22 PM

We've spent plenty? New Haven has a drop out rate of 14.6%, and you think we've spent enough? Look at teen crime rates, look at school funding through property taxes- and how property tax based school funding neglects the poorest neighborhoods.

If you think everyone deserves REC spaces, but not everyone deserves an education, then your priorites are out of whack. Maybe you should get a 'grip' on whats important to you and your community.

A place to hit a ball around, or youth that will go to college, start business's within our communities, and stay within the state?

Personally, I'll vote for the future over leisure activities any day.

My kids future means more to me than my kids REC opportunities.

Posted by: lance | June 18, 2009 6:03 PM

anthony, if you're banking on the new haven school system to dictate your kid's future I feel sorry for you. its the crappy parenting that is responsible for new haven's crappy school system.

compared to the money new haven wastes the court repair cost is minimal.

Posted by: STYLENE | June 19, 2009 12:38 PM

ANTHONY- I THINK WE ALL AGREE WITH YOU. HOWEVER, NEW HAVEN IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL CITY...WE HAVE TO INVEST IT. BEAUTIFICATION IS A MUST. REALLY HOW EXPENSIVE COULD IT BE TO SPEND A LITTLE MONEY FIXING UP SOME CRACKS? THEN, AGAIN WHAT ABOUT THE POT HOLES? LOL

Posted by: Rev. Samuel T. Ross-Lee | June 21, 2009 2:58 PM

It actually makes little sense simply to fill in the holes at Edgewood park and do a "complete makeover" at East Shore Park.

Any superficial observation will yield evidence of the fact that the courts at Edgewood are the most used courts in the city and the ones at East Shore are hardly used, mainly because there are no lights at East Shore for night play.

The Edgewood courts bring out a cross section of the Greater New Haven community, and they are even used by two different High Schools for their home matches. On any given tennis-worthy day, the number of tennis players at Edgewood can be overwhelmingly rich. But with only 3 of the 7 courts having lights, and all of them having craters, not just cracks, in their surfaces, most players are disappointed when it comes to getting quality playing time and space.

The courts at Edgewood should be given a higher priority simply because they are in use by a greater number of people and the people's tax dollars should be used to benefit the greatest number of people when reasonable.

The courts and the lights at Edgewood should be fixed. The present lights there are either non-functioning, non-efficient, or non-existent. A better lighting situation will allow for the lights to be turned on (at a reasonable hour) and turned off by the players when they are done, as oppose to having the light stay on long after the players have left the court.

And the lights should be tennis lights, and not the flood lights that presently light up the sky, but not the courts.

Quality of life is a reasonable asset to expect in any city, and doing a quality and necessary job on the tennis courts at Edgewood park where so many citizen enjoy the game should not be seen as an unusual or unreasonable thing to expect.

Tennis Court Fix-Up Set

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