Opinion: New York City’s Parks and the ‘Gospel of Wealth’

A New Yorker blog examines philanthropy in New York City’s parks in the context of the growing chasm between giving to already well-endowed institutions versus giving to those in greater need.

The blog’s author, Benjamin Soskis, a fellow at George Mason University’s Center for Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, and Policy, cites a proposal presented by a state senator that would require conservancies that are already well off to give 20 percent of their budgets to the Neighborhood Parks Alliance. That money would then be redistributed to the city’s underfunded parks.

In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Sen. Daniel Squadron, who proposed the bill, compared the amenities at Central Park with those of St. Mary’s Park, in the South Bronx, “where the baseball bleachers don’t have seats and the cracked tennis court has no net.”

Mr. Soskis goes on to compare the park situation to giving to elite private schools, which “soak up donations from willing parents, bestowing iPads and architecturally exquisite playgrounds on select schools—amenities that schools in less affluent districts, or without their own foundations, must do without.”