One of the greatest tennis players in history, Serena Williams, learned to play the game on the free public courts of Compton. But here in New York City, where Serena arrives this week to try and win her record 23rd major singles title, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is charging $200 for a seasonal permit to play tennis.
It wasn't always that way.
Until 2003, permits for tennis facilities at public parks—from Crotona Park in the Bronx to Marine Park in Brooklyn to Riverside Park in Manhattan—were $50. That year, the Bloomberg Administration increased the fee to $100.
In 2007, Mike Bloomberg friend and tennis aficionado Betsy Smith was promoted to head of revenue for the Parks Department. During Smith's tenure, the price of an annual tennis permit doubled again, rising to $200 in 2011. (Children under 18 and adults over 65 get deeply discounted permits.)
Smith famously tried to give a private tennis club year-round control of Queensboro Oval park—previously the club had a contract to operate for eight months of the year—which would have closed the park off to the public entirely. Later, after that proposal was turned back by community opposition, she brokered a deal to extend the eight month tennis season by six weeks.
Tracy Kahn, 50, started playing tennis at the Astoria Park courts this spring. She didn't realize the courts required a permit until a Parks Department employee approached her and explained that she couldn't play without a permit.
When Kahn discovered that a permit would set her back $200, she was bewildered. "I played tennis my whole life in upstate New York in public parks for free," she said. "It's ludicrous that we're paying exorbitant New York City taxes, which fund city parks, and we can't even use property that we pay for unless we pay more for a permit."
(She said she continues to play on the courts sans permit as a "form of protest," though it's unclear if the Parks Department is aware of this act of recreational disobedience.)
Fees at the city's tennis courts are by far the steepest at its public sporting facilities. Basketball and handball courts are free to use. Permits for team sports are sold by the game: Use of a baseball diamond costs $25; a game of football costs $32. These are fees for field use, not per person, so an individual might end up paying just a few bucks for an afternoon of softball.
Even among polo-collar sports, tennis is the extreme outlier. A croquet permit is $30, as is a lawn bowling permit. Kayak permits are $15.
In raising the permit fee for tennis courts, the Bloomberg Administration ignored warnings from budget experts that the policy change would not be an effective method of increasing revenue. Yevgeniya Bukshpun, a former analyst at the NYC Independent Budget Office, wrote prior to the permit price hike that the city's revenue projections were likely inflated, as the increase in fees was likely to be offset by a significant decrease in permit purchases. (The city projected that purchases would drop just five percent):
The courts at Linden Park in East New York are crumbling, the product of decades of neglect. A renovation is finally coming this fall. Scott Heins / Gothamist
IBO's previous research found that doubling the cost of adult season tennis court passes in 2003—from $50 to $100—led to a 40 percent drop in sales volume, as players switched to single-play passes. Sales of single-play passes, the price for which remained unchanged at $5 until 2005—increased, yet total revenues rose only marginally from $1.2 million in 2002, prior to the fee increase, to $1.4 million in 2005 following both fee increases.
Bukshpun warned that by increasing fees, the city risked locking out low-income New Yorkers. "Residents may seek out less expensive ways to stay physically fit or stay home altogether and undermine the Mayor's efforts to keep them healthy," she wrote.
Bukshpun's predictions proved accurate. Between 2006 and 2010, when an adult permit cost $100, permit sales averaged more than 13,000 annually. Since the fee doubled in 2012, that's dropped to fewer than 7,500 a year. Annual revenue is up around 15 percent.
(Last year, Parks Department official Bob Garafola told New York magazine that the department is exploring strategies to increase use of public courts.)
In an interview with Gothamist, Parks Department spokesperson Crystal Howard defended the Parks Department policy. "While we recognize that this increase may be unpopular to some, we believe it is fair and necessary," she said.
Howard explained that permit fees were established for tennis and other sports more than 30 years ago to assist with the management of use. Yet many of the city's courts are in disrepair. At East River Park, the concrete is beaten and fissured. At Linden Park in East New York, weeds grow through the wide cracks in the ground. On City Island, plastic bags are used as makeshift ties to hold up sagging nets.
Permit funds do not go directly towards maintaining the courts, either. They flow into the general operating budget for the city, which pays for everything from sanitation to police and schools.
East River Park. Scott Heins / Gothamist
Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates, which lobbies for increased access to parks, said the Parks Department has its priorities backwards. "The mission of the Parks Department is to provide services, not to collect revenue," he said. "It is discriminatory and it prevents middle class and poor people from experiencing tennis."
Last year, Croft suggested a new policy under which individuals without permits would be able to play on unused courts, on a first come, first served basis. If a permit holder showed up and wanted to play, she would have the right to take over the court.
"The new policy would also go a long way in fixing an often frustrating reality that has existed for years—non-permitted users being chased away by park employees in select neighborhoods," he said.
But the Parks Department is staying put. "NYC Parks received and considered Mr. Croft's proposal," Howard said. "We will not be making any changes as this time."
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that prior to 2003, tennis permits for New York City parks were free. The permits in fact cost $50 in 2003. The price was raised that year to $100.
