95. Play Street

Photo of students enjoying Play Street.

Each day for about 45 minutes, approximately 100 kids pour onto East 89th street and run wild. Balls fly, jump ropes swing, and 11, 12, and 13-year-old students chase each other on the hard concrete.

Most schools have recess in a playground or on a field — not Dalton. Instead, we have Play Street. One free period a day for us city kids to roam the street, hang out with our friends, and chat with teachers. The boys use sidewalk chalk to draw squares for super competitive box ball games, inevitably leading to one or more hit cars, setting off a cacophony of shrieking car alarms. I can still hear Ms. DJ, my sixth grade English teacher, shouting, “Sidewalk!” as the entire class of 2016 runs away from the street and takes a knee to let a car pull out of its parking spot.

To this day, I have never seen anything quite like the end of Play Street — teachers ushering in mobs of kids who crowd the staircase while rushing to the third floor cafeteria in order to be first on the lunch line.

Even now, I can’t help but smile when I pass 89th and Lexington sometime around noon and see the familiar Dalton security guard in his distinctive red fleece standing in front of the age-old blue barricades mouthing hello to me over the screams and laughter of middle school students.
—Phoebe Chase ’16