Parks Dept. Removes Items "Offensive" To Native Americans In Playground Rehab

"An outcry from the Native community led to the meeting with the Parks Department, and the decision to eliminate the dig."

The design originally included a mock “artifact dig” (above) in a circular sandbox, containing objects modeled after Native American artifacts that children would “excavate.” But the Parks Department removed the objects out of the sandbox on Monday, following a meeting with representatives of the Native community on Nov. 1st. that lasted three hours. (A Northattan.com reporter was denied access to the meeting by a Parks Department official.) Objects in the artifact dig had included “a clay pot, various arrow heads, and stone tools,” but Native American representatives said that digging up Native artifacts is considered “desecration” in light of “archaeological travesties to our community” including unearthing of burial sites, acts made illegal by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. (Photo by Chiara Sottile/Northattan)

Manhattan

A renovation of the Indian Road Playground in Inwood is nearly complete after a year, though with some changes that came about because of objections from Native Americans concerned that parts of the original design were offensive, according to Northattan.com.

The playground was designed with a Native American theme as a reference to Manhattan’s first residents, the Lenape people, and for its location on Indian Road. The design originally included a mock “artifact dig” in a circular sandbox, containing objects modeled after Native American artifacts that children would “excavate.” But the Parks Department pulled the objects out of the sandbox on Monday, following a meeting with representatives of the Native community on Nov. 1 that lasted nearly three hours.

“They clearly heard what we were saying and made that big change in their design,” said Harlan Pruden, of the First Nations Cree tribe from Canada, who attended the meeting. “It shows that the Parks Department is willing to work with the community.”

The artifact dig was one element in the playground’s complete redesign meant to communicate the playground’s new Native American theme, Parks Department spokesman Philip Abramson said in an e-mail before the decision to remove it. The playground’s other thematic elements include a tic-tac-toe game that uses Native iconography and a hollowed-out canoe.

The objects in the artifact dig had included “a clay pot, various arrow heads, and stone tools,” Abramson wrote, and the intended purpose of the artifact dig was “play value and developing interest in the act of performing a dig and education in some of the types of objects that were found in the area.”

But Pruden said that digging up Native artifacts is considered “desecration” in light of “archaeological travesties to our community” including unearthing of burial sites, acts made illegal by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

The playground has a Native theme because Inwood is traditionally the land of the Lenape people and the playground is located on Indian Road. (Photo by Chiara Sottile/Northattan)

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Native American concerns yield Inwood park changes

Northattan - November 11, 2010 - By Chiara Sottile