Staten Island is known as the "borough of parks." The borough is home to some of the city’s popular green spaces, like Snug Harbor and Cloves Lakes Park.

On the borough’s South Shore, the 138-acre park brings a community together. An expansive nature trail, playground and a dog park make up Bloomingdale Park.

An unofficial mainstay of the park is on the bocce court — where people, like Rob Marshall, come to spend their days.

“There’s always somebody here unless there’s snow on the ground, there’s somebody’s playing. Cold weather, warm weather, can’t play during the rainy because the court when it gets wet and you can’t throw the ball the right way, that’s the other way that nobody’s playing at that time,” Rob Marshall of Eltingville said.

The crew of bocce ballplayers has been around for 15 years. Players say they meet up at noon and play until sundown.

“We have to turn guys away at this point cause we only got one court we need another court,” Cipriano Nigro, a Huguenot resident, said.

“There’s the old timers that have retired, they come here to clean the court or set it up, then they’ll stop playing, then another set of guys will come and may leave. And then at the end of it, if the guys will finish work, they’ll come at the end of the day. So it’s basically you have three tiers of people at play here,” Dino Gugliara of Prince's Bay said.

It’s an Italian game, and the goal is to throw the ball closest to the “pallino” — the smaller ball.

It gets competitive, but players say that comradery keeps them coming back every day. Many who visit Bloomberg Park is retired or looking to spend their free time in their community.

“A lot of these guys feel like if they stop coming to the park like this, if they stop being active. They’ll die,” Gugliara said.

The community says the bocce crew makes every day a good day at the park.

“Us being here protects the community because the kids could come play at the park and they know we’re here and nothing is gonna happen to them,” Raymond Yandoli, a bocce crew member, said.

For Marshall, he says his experience here in the park just goes to show the impact a community space can have in your hometown.

“These people became my friends from the bocce court. A lot of them I didn’t know before but now I consider them my friends,” Marshall said.