So Much Llama Drama: Wise Towers Bars Non-residents from New Playground

A newly renovated playground is supposed to bring nothing but fun to New York City kids.

Instead, the renowned “Llama Park”— so named for the herd of 18 Constantino Nivola sculptures which decorate its plaza (and are actually horses) — at the Wise Towers on West 90th street, between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, has unexpectedly become a hotspot of controversy.

It’s a scuffle between neighbors who want to keep using the Wise Towers’ playground as they have for years, and its public housing residents who, due to alleged vandalism by private Trinity School students, want to restrict access.

Opened in 1965 and named for renowned Stephen S. Wise (1874-1949), the Budapest-born, New York-raised reform Rabbi and activist, the vest pocket public housing project replaced a block of old tenement buildings.

In an inspired design stroke, the Wise Towers public plaza included Nivola horse sculptures whose appearance is such that many people confuse them with llamas— thus “Llama Park.” By any species, the sculptures and their accompanying wall mural are among the jewels Manhattan public art.

Like many public housing projects, however, Wise Towers faced financial challenges with regards to maintenance. Coincidentally, the once economically diverse Upper West Side became, for those without rent stabilized apartments, an increasingly wealthy enclave.

These two trends were bound to collide and now they have. In 2020, Wise Towers, NYCHA handed over management of Wise Towers to the private PACT Renaissance Collaborative. Questions were raised about this public to private transfer but mostly in regard to the near death, following a 2021 water main repair, of the Nivola horses.

Happily, the horses’ unceremonious removal received a substantial amount of attention, and PACT subsequently oversaw their restoration and reinstallation.

“Llama Park” was whole again and would only get better once its new playground— one much nicer than the one it replaced—was complete.

This is where the trouble begins. The new playground is wonderful, including a beautified jungle gym and colorful slides—so wonderful, that many people want to use it.

Chief among the offenders, according to Wise Towers residents, are the rambunctious students of the private, and very expensive, Trinity School across the street.

It’s not just the Trinity kids, however,

“They (Wealthy Upper West Side neighbors) bring their dogs, and don’t curb them,” Wise Towers tenant president Ernesto Carrera told Straus News. “There is urine and feces all on the right side of the sidewalk. And, we have a beautiful basketball court, and they take their dogs over there to urinate on the art.

More contentiously, small children too have come under Carrera’s watchful eye. “The kids pee in the playground because there is no porta potty,” Carrera said. “And people will ask, ‘can you please stop that, and they look at you and say, ‘the hell with you.’”

Carrera pointed to one of the windows of the Wise Towers that was shattered, because, he believes, a Trinity school student threw a rock at it.

“When I saw it visually myself, I was like for real? This is what we’re doing now?” Carrera said. “You can’t go to a place and just crash it and say, ‘this is what we’re doing, we don’t care if you live here — this is the projects, and you guys don’t even pay taxes.”

And so Wise Towers management made the signs: “No Trespassing” and “For Wise Towers Residents Only.”

This change of policy, after more than 60 years, alarmed many people, including Council Member Gale Brewer, whose district includes the Wise Towers. Nonetheless, NYCHA affirmed to Straus News that “All NYCHA campuses are private property, and the Wise Towers is in their right to do what they please in their premises.”

For their part, non-residents are largely confused, and saddened.

Trinity school principal of the lower school, Kristen Crawford, sent an email to its community stating that the institution would no longer be using the playground. “Trinity School has an arrangement to play at Llama Park during recess,” Crawford wrote, according to the West Side Rag. “We are suspending our recess play there for the time being. I suggest families also suspend playing there after school and over the weekends.”

Both the school and school parents refused to comment to Straus News about the Wise Towers Playground.

“The residents of Wise Towers are out top priority,” Tom Corsillo, a spokesperson for PACT Renaissance Collaborative, who oversaw the installation of the signs, said in a statement. “It has been a privilege to help make their homes, including their outdoor open space, a place they can be proud of, and we are committed to ensure they have the high quality of life they deserve.” Corsillo was at the Ribbon Cutting Event on June 12, to celebrate the newly renovated playground.

“Because we are public housing, the neighbors are surprised that a nice playground was installed for a development like this — they are like, ‘no way,’” Ernesto Carrera adds. “I am disappointed with the Upper West Side. Every time you see progression for public housing something happens to push us back, and it’s our fault.”