Photo by C. Leaman

Located at Chrystie and Broome Streets, NYC bike polo players lovingly call their court “The Pit”. This is the name The Parks Department has nicknamed this section of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park. The Pit has been used regularly for bike polo for three years now, and has also been used for tai chi, stickball, kickball, street hockey, and a wide variety of other activities for a very long time. While almost every area in SDR Park is assigned a specific use, such as the handball courts, the soccer fields, the basketball courts, and the playgrounds, this section of the park has the status of undesignated playspace. There are very few places like this in New York City, and we like it very much.
The Polo Court happens to be neighbors to a very unique meeting place, the Hua Mei Bird Garden. On most mornings you can find up to fifty locals in the garden with as many songbirds. Local bird owners have used this area of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park for the last 18 years. They founded the Forsyth Street Garden Club in 1993. There are very few places like this in North America, and we are happy to be their neighbor.
A small group of dog owners have made failed attempts at turning the multi-use paved area into a dog run. The New York Times did a story on an attempt in 1996. Another New York City paper, The Villager did a story on an attempt in 2007. In November 2007 a proposal was heard by the Community Board No.3. The CB 3 has an important advisory role in land use matters, among other things for Chinatown and the Lower East Side in Manhattan. The CB 3 rejected the idea. For many of those opposed, the reasoning seems obvious. Taking a playspace away from children, putting a dog park next to a bird garden, the issues of noise and smells in such close proximity to residential buildings, the fact that three people showed up to the meeting “for” and well over thirty polo players, local business owners, bird garden representatives, and local children showed up to speak “against”. Also the number of signatures on the petition to make a dog park was outnumbered 4 to 1 by the number of signatures on the petition to save the multi-use space. Currently we are preparing to oppose any future attempts to make unwanted changes to The Pit.
In October of 2007 The Pit was home to the Los Marcos Mayhem Polo Tournament. This was the largest gathering of hardcourt polo players ever. Twenty teams from all over North America came to play polo in New York City. Other tournaments at The Pit such as, the East Side Polo Invite II, and the East Coast Messenger Chumpionship 07′ have also attracted a number teams from other cities. The Pit is undoubtedly well thought of by many outside New York. In the future we are planning to hold many more polo tournaments in The Pit.

We play pick-up games in The Pit every Sunday from noon until dark and Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:00pm till we all get tired. New players are always welcome.