Iconic Playland park's opening remains a mystery as taxpayers already on hook for $36M in management flap
Westchester County taxpayers are already on the hook to pay as much as $36 million to the park's former management company, Standard Amusements — as government officials had no answers for the county-owned park in 2025 except to say they 'intend' to open it in some form.
'Our intention is to get as much of the park open and accessible to the public as possible,' said county Legislator Catherine Parker, who lives near the waterfront park which was featured in the Tom Hanks movie 'Big.'
5 'Our intention is to get as much of the park open and accessible to the public as possible,' said county Legislator Catherine Parker about Playland amusement park.
Matthew McDermott
'I believe we will have at least – I don't know if it's going to be Kiddie Land or what it's going to look like, I don't know if anybody knows that right now because we're still unwinding the whole Standard Amusements debacle.'
County Executive Ken Jenkins said Wednesday night during an annual 'State of the County' speech that it's his 'intention' to open iconic Playland Park for the 2025 season – but provided no details after the park's former operator walked away from its deal to run the historic landmark in February due to alleged contractual violations by the county.
'Playland is more than just a park, it's a cherished treasure, the crown jewel of Westchester County. A place where memories are made and community thrives,' the Democrat said as he bashed the deal signed by a former administration.
Westchester has hosted a job fair in hopes of attracting staff, including lifeguards. That means a pool and beach on the property will be made accessible, but Parker warned, 'The amusement park is another story.'
A county spokesperson said Thursday officials 'were still assessing the situation' at the Art Deco park.
'Once we have a clearer timeline and plan for the summer, we'll announce it to the public,' the spokesperson said.
5 Westchester County taxpayers are paying as much as $36 million to the park's former management company, Standard Amusements, despite the former operator leaving the deal due to alleged contractual violations by the county.
Playland Park/Facebook
5 'Once we have a clearer timeline and plan for the summer, we'll announce it to the public,' the spokesperson said.
Playland Park/Facebook
The nearly 100-year-old park usually opens up by late May and has only been closed for an entire season once, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The messy divorce between Standard and county, which officially took effect on Feb. 20, is already going to cost the county big with Jenkins calling on lawmakers earlier this month to approve borrowing up to $36 million in bonds to pay Standard.
He said lawmakers should take quick action so the county avoids 18% interest payments that would begin after 90 days from the time of the split, according to a April 17 memo first reported on by The Journal News.
5 Nick Singer of Standard Amusement.
Stephen Yang
5 The almost 100-year-old park has only been closed for an entire season once, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Playland Park/Facebook
The tens of millions of dollars is what Standard invested in the nearly-century-old park and is owed under the deal the two sides had, county attorney John Nonna told The Post.
Nonna said if the county is found responsible for the contract falling apart during an arbitration hearing later this year, it would owe Standard between $12 million and $21 million.
'We don't think we're in default,' he said.
But the lawyer added the county will attempt to recoup some money during arbitration by insisting the operator failed to maintain the amusement rides. It's not clear how much money that could be.
Jenkins and his predecessor, now-US Rep. George Latimer, have long decried the public-private contract signed by former county executive Rob Astorino with Standard. Latimer, when he first took office in 2018, tried to back out of the agreement, leading to a lengthy and costly court fight.
Standard Amusements said earlier this year it was dropping Playland, arguing the county didn't live up to a contractual obligation to fund and complete renovations.
Jenkins has countered that the county has poured about $150 million into park upgrades in recent years.
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The Hill
13 minutes ago
- The Hill
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Forbes
5 hours ago
- Forbes
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This line of thinking suggests that the traditional legal framework, built on the premise of human-to-human creative exchange, is ill-equipped to handle the age of machine learning. The idea is that AI models learn patterns and create new material rather than copy existing work. This distinction may be the undoing of copyright as we know it. The counterargument, however, is made by Jason Calacanis, another host of the podcast, and a defender of copyright holders. Calacanis argues that the rights of creators, such as journalists, musicians and filmmakers, must be protected. He believes that AI companies, which are becoming some of the most valuable corporate entities in history, should not be allowed to build their fortunes on the work of others without proper compensation. He envisions a future where licensing agreements become a foundation of the new AI economy. In this scenario, copyright does not die; instead, it evolves into a revenue stream, creating a golden era for content creation by funding more journalists, artists and fact-checkers. Training AI Data: Fair Use Of Copyrighted Material? The debate also centers on the legal and conceptual distinction between training data and output. David Friedberg and David Sacks, the other two podcast hosts, offer a more balanced perspective to bridge the divide. They both favor a fair use interpretation for AI training. Friedberg believes that if information is available on the open internet, an AI learning from it is no different from reading books to learn. Sacks agrees, drawing a clear line between the training process and the final output. They argue that the infringement occurs only if the AI's output is a direct copy or plagiarism of copyrighted material. This approach attempts to strike a balance, allowing AI to improve by learning from a broad pool of sources while still holding the AI and its developers accountable for plagiaristic outputs. This was the perspective defended by President Trump during the announcement of the AI Action Plan, highlighting Sacks' influence as the chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. A Case Study In AI's Copyright Clash A similar debate recently played out in a public dispute between internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare and AI search engine Perplexity. The conflict encapsulates the competing viewpoints. Cloudflare accused Perplexity of using stealth crawling to access websites that had blocked them. Web crawling is a practice where a computer program automatically browses websites to collect information, much like a super-fast, automated visitor. Stealth crawling is when a web crawler hides its identity to bypass restrictions and reach sites that have barred it. Cloudflare's CEO, Matthew Prince, warned that AI models pose an existential threat to publishers' business models, echoing Calacanis's view that creators' livelihoods are at risk. Perplexity, however, pushed back, denying the accusations and characterizing the incident as a misunderstanding of its technology. The company argued that its AI assistants operate on behalf of a user's request and are not systematically crawling the web for training data. This defense reflects Sacks and Friedberg's view that the key issue is the AI's purpose and how it's applied. Perplexity is fulfilling a specific, user-driven function, not stealing to build a new model, which they claim is a fundamentally different action. The dispute highlights the point that traditional rules are becoming fragile. Cloudflare claims its efforts to block certain automated programs, a bedrock of internet etiquette, were circumvented. This situation shows the difficulty of enforcing old rules when new technology can so easily bypass them. It also highlights the different philosophies: is an AI bot an uninvited guest or a helpful assistant working on a user's behalf? This is a clash between two visions of the future. One embraces a world where technology moves faster than the law, forcing us to abandon old notions of ownership in favor of new, more resilient business models. The other sees a future where copyright is not an outdated legal concept but a vital economic engine that can be adapted and monetized in the age of AI. The middle ground points us to a path forward that adapts current laws to fit AI's real-world usage. The future of copyright is unlikely to be a simple binary decision. Instead, it will be a negotiation between creators, tech companies, lawyers, and regulators. What's clear is that the conversation is no longer confined to legal journals but has entered the mainstream, sparking a necessary dialogue about the value of creativity, the nature of intelligence, and the future of the digital economy.
