Image from Metropolitan Avenue directed by Christine Noschese
This playground honors Margaret Carnegie (1910-1993), a public housing leader from Cooper Park Houses, for fostering the relations between grandparents and grandchildren. Carnegie was born in Lawrenceville, Virginia, on April 27, 1910. She moved to New York in 1920, where she attended the Florence Garnett Training School for Girls, Junior High School 136, and Morris High School in the Bronx. In 1953, Carnegie moved to Cooper Park Houses in Brooklyn, where she became deeply involved in the Greenpoint- Williamsburg community for the next forty years of her life. Carnegie had a special interest in improving the livelihoods of seniors. She accomplished better housing, activities and safety for the elderly and brought grandparent’s day to New York. Grandparents Avenue, located along a section of Kingsland Avenue, earned its name in recognition to her work. Shortly before her death in June of 1993, this playground was renamed in her honor.
Carnegie was an outstanding community leader who achieved to bridge the differences between ethnic groups in the Greenpoint–Williamsburg area by becoming involved in several community organizations throughout her life. She was part of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, the Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation, the Independent Friends of McCarren Park and the McCarren Pool Restoration, the Council for the Aging, the Williamsburg Greenpoint Independent Democrats, the Crispus Attucks Community Council of Williamsburg Inc., and the Devoe Street Baptist Church. She was founder and chaplain of the Cooper Park Senior Citizens Organization and served as president of the Grandparent Organization Inc. Margaret Carnegie frequented Cooper Park and regularly participated in poetry readings. She believed that through poetry she could encourage her neighborhood to improve their conditions as individuals and as a community. Inthe documentary film Metropolitan Avenue, she appears on her birthday reciting Malloch’s poem Be The Best Of Whatever You Are. This poem reflects her own approach to life and is placed in this playground to inspire children to become thoughtful caring adults.
If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley — but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass —
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here,
There’s big work to do, and there’s lesser to do,
And the task you must do is the near.
If you can’t be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail —
Be the best of whatever you are!
-Be the Best Of Whatever You Are by Douglas Malloch
A major reconstruction project for the entire park in 1965 removed the track and wading pool, adding basketball and handball courts, game tables, and bocce courts. New play equipment, like the spiral/helical slide, hexapod and ups-‘n downs represented 1960s innovations in playground design. In 1984, a new oval design, intersected with diagonals, was created for Carnegie Playground. New play equipment, safety surfacing, and a spray shower were also added.