Children take advantage of “Play Me, I’m Yours” and the shade at Sackerah Woods Playground

Shaded under the open-aired municipal facilities at Sackerah Woods Playground, in Van Cortlandt Park’s southeastern corner, sits a curiously inviting blue and green piano.

The piano’s creative aesthetic is accompanied by an open invitation: “Play Me, I’m Yours,” written just above the keys. The piano is part of a citywide public art project that temporarily placed 60 pianos in parks, playgrounds and gardens. The Sackerah Woods piano is one of four in the Bronx.

The art project is run by the New York-based charity, Sing For Hope, which imported the concept from a similar project in Britain where they envisioned the pianos as “a catalyst for conversation.”

At Sackerah Woods on Monday afternoon, the piano was dominated by adolescents investigating the instrument’s capabilities while, at the same time, escaping the sun from beneath near-by the monkey bars.

The “Play Me, I’m Yours” project will continue to provide the pianos until July 5 and can also be enjoyed in the Bronx at Fordham Plaza, Grand Concourse and Joyce Kilmer Park.

David Gonzalez recently wrote about the pianos on the New York Times’ City Room blog.