After a decade of installing artificial turf, the city’s Parks Department is finally acknowledging what’s long been known: Fake grass get hot.
One study cited by the Health Department in a recent report on the turf said, “At temperatures above 120 degrees, it only takes 3 seconds to burn a child’s skin severely enough to require surgery.”
One day last month, the artificial turf at Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza was 165.5 degrees, while a nearby plot of grass measured just 83 degrees. Waves of heat rose from the field.
“It’s outrageous,” said Josh Srebnick, a pediatric neuropsychologist who was playing with his five-year-old son, Jake. Click here.
