Chelsea Park  Chelsea Park is a park in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, that dates back to 1910. The park has sports fields, basketball and handball courts, a children's playground and space for sitting. The surface is mostly tarmac or artificial turf, with pits for the plane trees and some plots with annual flower plantings. There is a statue to a World War I soldier, the "Doughboy Statue", erected in 1921. The process of approval, funding and clearing the tenements that occupied the site was protracted. The park has since been upgraded several times by the Works Progress Administration and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Chelsea Park is located between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, and between West 27th and West 28th Streets in Manhattan. The park covers almost . There is fencing around the park to contain the active play areas, with gates at various points. The soccer pitch is surrounded by taller fencing while the rest of the park is surrounded by shorter fences. The area between West 26th and West 28th Streets and 9th and 10th Avenues is a superblock, comprising two normal-sized blocks. West 27th Drive is a driveway used only for service access, with the park occupying most of the block to the north of the drive. To the south along 26th Street are three 12-to-14-story brick towers run by the New York City Housing Authority in the southern part of the superblock, as well as a public school (PS 33 Chelsea Prep) and the Hudson Guild Settlement House. The annex to the Morgan General Mail Facility occupies the block directly to the north of the park. The Church of the Holy Apostles, built in 1848, is located on the east side of 9th Avenue across from the park. It is located within the Penn South housing complex. Chelsea Park has spaces for both passive and active recreation. It is one of the busier parks in the neighborhood. It contains baseball diamonds, basketball courts and six handball courts. The artificial turf sports field covers about one third of the area. The P.O. David Willis Basketball Court is named after the New York City Police Department officer David Willis (1964–95), who used to patrol the park. There are public washrooms at West 27th Street and 9th Avenue, open year-round. The park contains a District Health Center, a low-rise red brick building in the eastern part of the park. There are no artificial or natural ponds. As of 2008 there were 27 mature London plane trees ("Platanus × acerifolia") with heights of around the perimeter of the park, and another 28 similar trees scattered through the interior.