Credit: Eric Rosewall - Depave

Here is what the playground of Vestal Elementary school on 82nd Avenue currently looks like:

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Last summer Vestal teacher Chad Honl got so upset with kids spending recess on a what amounts to a grassless parking lot that he got the school to tear up one patch of pavement and plant grass. This summer, he’s got some help. The anti-pavement nonprofit Depave that I profiled a couple weeks ago is heading out to Vestal this weekend to annihilate another 15,000 square feet of pavement. In the picture above, you can see volunteers cutting the pavement into squares with the help of heavy machinery — tomorrow anyone can come and attack the pavement with pickaxes.

I can tell you from personal experience that there are few things as cathartic as getting to manually demolishing a giant swath of asphalt. It’s basically every eight-year-old boy’s dream come true—getting let loose with a crowbar and told to attack. Plus, they’ll have free snacks.

Tomorrow, Saturday August 8th! 9AM-5PM Vestal Elementary, 161 N. 82nd Avenue

Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

9 replies on “15,000 Square Feet of Asphalt for the Kids!”

  1. WHHHHEEEEEE!!! Back-breaking manual labour is so cathartic and soul cleansing for the creative class. Way to stick it to the proverbial man by working hard for a couple of hours before you retire to drinking your orange mocha-frappacinos and discussing the relative merits of The Atlantic vs Harper’s.

    But it is good that the kids can play on some sod and grass. I wish I would have had that opportunity. I grew up in the “heartland”; but even the “heartland” has some ghetto to it.

  2. So cutting and ironic, Graham! Complete with latte reference! You might be interested to hear what Lewis Hyde had to say about irony: “Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.”

  4. Chad Honl (and Vestal) rocks. I’ve worked at Vestal a little bit and it’s clear that Honl’s a forward-thinking guy whose students will remember and benefit from his hard work for a long time. Having a “playground” like theirs when the school sits right on 82nd Avenue only adds asphalt insult to paved injury.

    If I can get up from my Hamms stupor before noon (bike races and First Friday tonight!), I’ll be there in my best thrift store working-class costume, getting callouses on my soft hands. I doubt I’ll see Graham’s skinny heartland ghetto rump there, though. He’s gotta be online, keeping the internet in check.

  5. I think unpaved playgrounds set unrealistic expectations for our childrens’ future– which will mostly consist of a boot stamping on a human face forever.

  8. @carl My mistake (stupid fucking typos). I should have said:

    Spine, Do you know what Salinger had to say for pretentious blowhards?

    “Fuck you”

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