The recently rehabilitated McCarren Park tennis courts will be getting bubbled, according to a Parks Department memo obtained by Brownstoner. The Parks Department plans to issue an RFP for "the development, operation and maintenance of an indoor tennis facility at McCarren Park." It's unclear if this change will also include an expansion of the tennis courts and the eviction of the adjacent cement softball fields, as previously suggested, but the news comes just as the Parks Department announced steep increases for tennis permits citywide.

The Parks Department plans to raise the seasonal adult tennis permit to $200 from $100 this year. Single-play tickets for those without permits would increase to $15 from $7 per person, per hour. According to the Wall Street Journal, "The Parks Department will make a final decision on the change in 30 days; it is seen as very likely to pass." And this has the McCarren Tennis Association—a grassroots group that raised enough money to resurface one of the weathered court surfaces last year—making a holy racket. In an open letter to the Parks Department, they write:

At the outset, we are aware of the city's budgetary problems and do not categorically oppose all fee increases. However, we believe this tennis fee increase is fundamentally unfair, effectively singling out one sport for punitive fee increases while maintaining reasonable fee structures in others.. If Parks must increase fees, the fee increase should be reasonable. Doubling fees that are already the highest in the city (per player) is not reasonable.

Tennis fees are already the highest fees on a per-person basis of any sport. Softball fees, for example, are planned to increase to $12.50 per hour for a maintained field the size of at least 12 tennis courts. Divided by 20 players (2 teams), that's a maximum per person fee of $2 per person for a 3 hour session. To play 3 hours of tennis under these proposed fee increases, it would cost one person $45—an expense twenty-two times greater.

Of course, if the courts were indoors, they'd get to play year round, which would presumably make the permit increase go a little further. That is, until the bubble deflates in the next heavy snowfall.