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Free Summer Play Streets Programs: No-Cost Sports, Arts and More for NYC Kids

6/1/14 - By Alina Adams

This page will be updated as the info for 2015 becomes available. So far this summer, we've rounded up free sports programs, free concerts, free movies and free things to do every day over school break. Now we've got the scoop on the free Summer Play Streets program, which kicks off on Monday, July 7. New York City kids in all five boroughs can enjoy old-school supervised outdoor activities at no cost, courtesy of the Police Athletic League.

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From Monday, July 7 through Friday, August 22 9am to 5pm, kids can drop by designated streets, schools and playgrounds for a variety of fun. There's stickball, volleyball, basketball, skully and double Dutch for older kids, and jump rope, hopscotch and relay races for younger ones, plus chess, checkers, mancala and board games. In additiont o fun, other goals of the Summer Play Streets program include fostering community and crime prevention.

PAL's Summer Play Streets program dates back to 1914, when NYC's police commissioner, concerned that local kids had no safe places to play, organized a search for vacant lots which could be converted into playgrounds. He ended up closing 29 blocks to traffic in the afternoons so kids could romp. Today, it continues to be PAL's most popular program and gives a whole new meaning to "go play in the street!"

To find a Summer Play Street near you, call the Police Athletic League at 212-477-9450 ext. 389.

The NYC Parks Department runs a similar free Play Streets Program, although it doesn't take place every day. The list of dates and locations will be listed on the website by early July. You can also request a mobile recreation van for your neighborhood, with sports, arts and crafts. board games, face painting, balloon art and more.

Looking for FREE street fun on the weekends? Check out our posts about the Department of Transportation's car-free Weekend Walks and Summer Streets.


Find out about other free seasonal activities in our Summer Fun Guide.

This post was originally published in July 2012.

About the Author

Alina Adams

Alina Adams - NYC Writer

Alina was born in the former Soviet Union, spent her teen years in San Francisco, and came to New York City to work for ABC Daytime and ABC Sports. She spent her pre-marriage/pre-kid years as a figure-skating researcher and producer for the U.S. and World Championships, the 1998 Olympics in Nagano and various professional shows.

After learning that international travel and resentful toddlers don’t mix, she switched to PGP Productions and its soap operas As the World Turns and Guiding Light, where she wrote New York Times best-selling tie-in books and developed interactive properties like AnotherWorldToday.com.

The birth of her third child (and the process of enrolling her two older kids into NYC schools—a full-time job in itself!) convinced Alina that she was not, in fact, Superwoman, and prompted her to leave TV and turn to writing books, including romance novels (Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga, When a Man Loves a Woman), figure-skating mysteries (Murder on Ice, On Thin Ice) and nonfiction (Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama’s Greatest Moments).

In addition to contributing to Mommy Poppins, Alina blogs for Jewish parenting site Kveller.com and is in the process of turning her previously published backlist into enhanced e-books with multimedia features like audio, video and more. Follow her exhaustive and exhausting efforts to become a Mommy Media Mogul (is that a thing? If it isn’t, it really should be) at AlinaAdams.com and on Google+

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