Carl Schurz Park Catches Pickleball Fever

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Instead the scene on the courts was cordial. An ad-hoc system to not only know whose turn it is to play, but also a rough attempt at skills-matching, ensured that strangers could comfortably play with each other and easily join in a match.

“I’ve been here pretty much every day since they opened,” said Bob Covello, a semi-retired electrical contractor who lives on East 77th Street.

He’s also a beginner Pickleball instructor and that afternoon had served as a bit of an ambassador to the courts for Drew, a Lower East Side resident who came to play with a visiting friend.

“We were in the neighborhood already,” he explained, “otherwise we wouldn’t come up so far just to play.”

Another player, Henry, said he lives on the west side of Manhattan and typically plays at indoor courts.

“Now I’m coming outside because it’s so much nicer,” Henry said.

“You came all the way here just to beat us,” joked Drew. He also noted that the courts he usually plays at further downtown and in Murray Hill are seemingly always packed with people.

Drew and his friend said that in about two hours, they played about three games.

“That’s about as much time as I can take off work during the day,” he said.

“You Could Learn In An Hour”

Pickleball might seem like tennis. And many of the players play both sports. But for many older players, the differences between the two is the key to why they play, and why many credit the game with getting older people physically active again.

The games last about 15-20 minutes each, and a number of tweaks — smaller courts, a two-bounce rule after a serve to ensure a volley, and a non-volley zone around the net known as the “kitchen”— makes the sport possible for Covello, a former avid tennis player, to play.

“It started with older people because we didn’t want to play tennis anymore,” he told Patch. “It’s more fun and it’s not as competitive. The objective of the game is to have fun.”

“You could learn it in an hour,” he added.

“Everyone here is really friendly,” said Henry, the player from the west side. “It’s social. It’s a really social activity.”

“Pickleball is going to save the country,” said another player.

Covello, 80, is a dual cancer survivor and says he picked up his first pickleball paddle when he was out of the city during the peak of the pandemic.

For people his age, it’s helped keep them physically active and socially engaged, like one of Covello’s retired friends who he said was really overweight but now plays pickleball all the time.

“He’s moving, and he’s really starting to loose weight now,” he said.

Covello credits the elusive retired doctor Albert, known as Albert the Pickleball Doctor, for ensuring that the sport thrives in the neighborhood by offering the use of his own nets for play.

“He comes here every morning, sets up the nets and balls, plays a few games and leaves,” explained another neighborhood player, “and then he comes to get them later on.”

Pickle players also pointed out that a new locked box also contains nets, to which several regular players had keys.

“A Beautiful Mess”

It’s not a totally perfect system.

Some players complained that, with some smarter planning, a fourth court could have been squeezed in.

An impromptu non-regulation sized court on the far southern end of the multi-use play area is unofficially reserved for beginners, warm-ups and lessons.

And disputes over the use of park space continues, with some Upper East Siders still arguing over the decision to make nearly half of the park space exclusively for pickleball.

“Honestly that’s terrible,” wrote one person on social media in anticipation of the new courts opening. “So now kids have nowhere to skate or throw a ball around. WTF?”

Pickleball players have their own space concerns — that people might try to get a parks permit for their pickle play area. One player asked for Community Board 8 to issue a resolution against permits that would include the new courts.

“Are we then now going to have a problem where we can’t play pickleball because somebody got a permit that includes the courts?” asked Phillis Wallach at last month’s Community Board 8 Parks Committee meeting. “We want to be sure that if you give a permit, you give it to the open play part that does not include those pickle ball courts.” A parks department official said that it would be rare for a permit to be issued for the whole area.

For now, the area appears to accommodate both pickle ball players and kids playing basketball at the neighboring courts — on an area that was not resurfaced at the same time as the space where the new courts are, an issue that even a pickleball player — playing basketball that day — said was an oversight.

“It’s fabulous that they did this,” said Upper East Side resident and pickleball beginner Paula, “even the skateboarders are benefitting [from the new surface], but they should have also resurfaced the basketball courts.”

Another pickleball player, sweaty after an intense match in the sun on Wednesday, told Patch that while not perfect, the grassroots pickleball system seemed to be working for now.

“It’s a mess,” he said, “but it’s a beautiful mess.”
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