New York City Schoolyard Playground Locations and Attributes

Published in 2026, this dataset catalogs New York City Department of Education schoolyards participating in the Schoolyards to Playgrounds initiative. It is published by data.cityofnewyork.us and includes records for each participating schoolyard, with boundaries drawn from secondary data sources.

Use Cases

• Analyze the distribution of public play spaces by BOROUGH and COMMUNITYBOARD to identify service gaps.
• Calculate total accessible open space ACRES per COUNCILDISTRICT or NYS_ASSEMBLY district.
• Map schoolyard LOCATION and ADDRESS coordinates to assess walking distance coverage for residents.
• Join on ZIPCODE or GISPROPNUM with demographic data to study equity in recreational resource allocation.

Strengths

• Includes geospatial data via the multipolygon column for mapping applications.
• Provides political and administrative boundaries like US_CONGRESS, NYS_SENATE, and COUNCILDISTRICT for jurisdictional analysis.

Limitations

• Dataset accuracy is limited by the scale and accuracy of original secondary sources, requiring field verification for specific sites.
• Unknown row count and sample size prevent assessment of completeness across all NYC schoolyards.
• Potential temporal staleness as updates occur only as schools join or exit the program.

Provenance

Source

data.cityofnewyork.us, a collaboration between NYC Parks, Department of Education, and Trust for Public Land.

Collection Method

Boundaries drawn in whole or part using secondary data; specific method not detailed.

Time Range

Reflects participating schoolyards at the time of the 2026 publication.

Freshness

Updated throughout the year as schools join or exit; last updated March 2026.

Geography

New York City, USA.