Carl Schurz Gets Permanent Pickleball Nets; Basketball Courts Remain Shoddy
Picklers told Our Town that a fence briefly separated the pickle courts from the rest of the park’s recreational space. It’s mostly gone now. The nearby basketball courts, meanwhile, remain cracked and without nets.
| 05 May 2025 | 06:34
The new pickleball courts in Carl Schurz Park, now with permanent nets sunk into the pavement, have been drawing a crowd. (
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Meanwhile, the park’s basketball courts—located just a stone’s throw away from the pickle courts—remain in the same exact state of disrepair as they were last August (pictured above). (
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Cracks in the pavement—and even a pothole at one end—are visible on the long-neglected basketball courts of Carl Schurz Park. (
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Pickleball players at Carl Schurz Park now have a dedicated set of permanent nets that have been cemented into the ground, courtesy of the NYC Parks Department. (
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The dedicated pickleball players at Carl Schurz Park now have permanent nets to play with, after the Parks Department cemented their poles into the ground last month. Meanwhile, basketball courts that sit a mere stone’s throw away remain without nets and are riddled with cracks, with a “restoration” proposal to repave the battered courts apparently stuck in bureaucratic limbo.
Some “picklers” told Our Town that the Parks Department also briefly put up a fence on the northern side of the courts around April 25, before reportedly taking it down within 24 hours after a local resident reportedly lodged a complaint. As of April 29, however, a few awkward feet of fencing remained inexplicably standing.
The creation of permanent courts at the East 86th Street park seemingly caps a journey that began in 2023, when a tenacious and mysterious man—known simply to his admirers as Dr. Pickleball—began hauling out temporary nets onto the south end of the park’s recreational blacktop. Chalk was used to draw informal court boundaries, and a community soon formed.
The Parks Department granted its official blessing to the project last year, by painting three bright-blue courts where the makeshift ones once stood. They also painted their agency’s large logo, ostensibly to claim credit.
Not everybody has been thrilled about “picklers” claiming dominion over this particular swath of the public park, however, with “pickleball wars” breaking out soon thereafter in the court of public opinion. A father who identified himself as Joel showed up at a Community Board 8 meeting in February 2023 to declare that some of the players were “nasty,” and had “created a deterrent for kids to play in the park.”
There was no such furor occurring on the lovely afternoon of April 9, with the courts packed. A couple of women waiting to play—who joked that they should be referred to as “a fugitive” and “her accomplice”—said that the last thing they wanted to see was more publicity. “We want people to go to Central Park,” they agreed, given how popular (and thus crammed) the Carl Schurz courts were becoming.
A pickleball player who identified himself as Jonathan called the permanent courts “an improvement.” However, he said that he didn’t “understand the [remaining] fence thing,” and speculated that it may be there to keep out “BMX riders” or “skateboarders.” Asked about the content of the complaint that ended up gutting the rest of the fence, his fellow player Rafa said that he figured it would have been somebody “teaching their son how to bike” or “walking their dog.”
Asked about any further disputes that he may have been aware of, Jonathan appeared to gesture at previous fracases that had broken out over the courts, saying that the fence could have been installed to “make sure we don’t play on the other side . . . or vice-versa.”
“It’s pretty live-and-let-live. Look, it’s New York City. It’s a public park, on the Upper East Side, it’s densely residential. There’s gonna be a million people here playing pickleball, a million people here doing other things,” he added. “It’s impossible not to have a few people that are confrontational, or engage in pretty bad behavior . . . who, because they want attention, are gonna behave like they’re 7th-graders.”
Meanwhile, the nearby basketball courts were far less trafficked. Richard, who was playing with his young child RoRo, was candid about the poor state of the courts. They’d seen “better days,” he said, and you could easily “twist your ankle” on the cracks. “I’ve seen citizens just putting up [basketball] nets on their own. If the Parks Department could give us nets, that would be nice.”
Last August, a Parks rep. told Our Town that they were seeking a designer for the proposed full-court remodeling by the fall. Yet Parks Department records still list the project as a mere “proposal,” meaning that it hasn’t necessarily even been selected to go forward. The department did not provide an update as of press time.
On May 17, Upper East Side City Council Member Julie Menin will be sponsoring a “Family Fun Day” in the shared recreational space, according to the Parks Department. It’s an event that has been held before, and it remains unclear how or whether its activities will be affected by the new permanent pickle nets. Council Member Menin’s office declined to comment.
One longtime resident, who admittedly preferred the wide-open asphalt space during its pre-pickleball makeover, asked: “Does this cut Family Fun Day space in half?”
“Look, it’s New York City. . . . There’s gonna be a million people here playing pickleball, a million people here doing other things . . . It’s impossible not to have a few people that are confrontational.”—Pickleball player Jonathan