Playgrounds of the Minefield
Jan. 11th, 2007 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqI hope this isn't a repeat. I just have the uncomfortable feeling of deja vu with this subject, like I've written it before. Maybe I've just thought about writing it before.
At any rate, this is a riff on the subject of playgrounds and on how they've become antiseptic in their safeness and sameness.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mallt wrote about it in her blog and it's also being discussed on the circus with regards to building a playground at the Quad War site.
As far as the philosophy of playgrounds is concerned, I do feel that we've lost something with the vanillaization of playgrounds. I can't remember the last time I saw a spaceship climber, or a solid wood teeter-totter or a spinner. Spinners were the best, nothing like making one of those things go insanely fast, then hang on to the edge with your head hanging down. I'm sure they resulted in many many dirt filled wounds in their time.
If anyone know of any of these around, I'd love to know where they are so I can get a photo or two before they disappear forever.
Kids like excitement, and physical danger is certainly exciting. I don't know that today's playgrounds offer the same level of excitement. Certainly the danger has gone down. That the kids haven't abandoned them entirely is astonishing. I guess that childhood is so short compared to "progress" that today's kids simply don't know what they're missing. I expect that when they get completely bored they'll do what kids have always done - make their own entertainment. Some kids do still play with their neighborhood cohort - they're not all growing pudgy and pale in the basement playing online games.
My Dad worked with Katimavik and one of the things they had the volunteers do was build "big toys" (my Dad's name for the giant tinker toy style playgrounds that were popular in the eighties and nineties). He thought they were pretty cool, but then the sixties/seventies style playground that I described above was completely skipped over by the old man. He grew up in depression era Winnipeg, so his playgrounds were the streets and back lots of St. Boniface. Big Toys would have impressed him, especially if he had a hand in building them. Plus making things for kids was exactly the sort of thing the old man loved.
The best playground in my neighborhood growing up was about a kilometer from Casa Cyr. The school that held the playground was fairly mundane physically. It did have the distinction of being neither a Public nor Separate school - It was always an independent school. When I was a kid it was Calgary's only Jewish elementary and when I was older it was a Waldorf School. Today the site is gone, replaced by townhouses.
What made it so cool was the fact that it was easily the most dangerous playground I've ever encountered. The only way it could have been made better was to find a construction site or simply play on the freeway!
The centerpiece of the park was two massive metal silos. The first was about ten feet high and ten feet in diameter. The second was somewhat taller (fifteen feet) and narrower (six feet diameter). A slat-and-chain-link bridge connected the two cylinders at the top. Both silos had (easily climbable) post-and-chain-link barriers welded to the top as guard rails. The taller silo had a metal ladder welded to it so that one could get up and down. The shorter silo had three key features: 1) a sloping stack of upright telephone poles (no doubt loaded with creosote) imbedded in the concrete along one side that you could use to scramble to the top. 2) a hole in the top with a fireman's pole in the center leading to the concrete base below. 3) a slide welded to the top that was twice as steep (seriously, I think this thing was at 60 degrees to the ground, whereas most slides are 30 degrees)as any normal slide. It was also taller then most slides - you'd hit the ground at warp speed!
I cannot remember any kid that I played with growing up who didn't get injured in this park at least once. I myself twisted my ankle on it something fierce. Playing tag on this structure was awesome.
It was dangerous as hell, and I can't help but feel that kids these days are missing out by not experiencing something like it.
At any rate, this is a riff on the subject of playgrounds and on how they've become antiseptic in their safeness and sameness.
mallt wrote about it in her blog and it's also being discussed on the circus with regards to building a playground at the Quad War site.As far as the philosophy of playgrounds is concerned, I do feel that we've lost something with the vanillaization of playgrounds. I can't remember the last time I saw a spaceship climber, or a solid wood teeter-totter or a spinner. Spinners were the best, nothing like making one of those things go insanely fast, then hang on to the edge with your head hanging down. I'm sure they resulted in many many dirt filled wounds in their time.
If anyone know of any of these around, I'd love to know where they are so I can get a photo or two before they disappear forever.
Kids like excitement, and physical danger is certainly exciting. I don't know that today's playgrounds offer the same level of excitement. Certainly the danger has gone down. That the kids haven't abandoned them entirely is astonishing. I guess that childhood is so short compared to "progress" that today's kids simply don't know what they're missing. I expect that when they get completely bored they'll do what kids have always done - make their own entertainment. Some kids do still play with their neighborhood cohort - they're not all growing pudgy and pale in the basement playing online games.
My Dad worked with Katimavik and one of the things they had the volunteers do was build "big toys" (my Dad's name for the giant tinker toy style playgrounds that were popular in the eighties and nineties). He thought they were pretty cool, but then the sixties/seventies style playground that I described above was completely skipped over by the old man. He grew up in depression era Winnipeg, so his playgrounds were the streets and back lots of St. Boniface. Big Toys would have impressed him, especially if he had a hand in building them. Plus making things for kids was exactly the sort of thing the old man loved.
The best playground in my neighborhood growing up was about a kilometer from Casa Cyr. The school that held the playground was fairly mundane physically. It did have the distinction of being neither a Public nor Separate school - It was always an independent school. When I was a kid it was Calgary's only Jewish elementary and when I was older it was a Waldorf School. Today the site is gone, replaced by townhouses.
What made it so cool was the fact that it was easily the most dangerous playground I've ever encountered. The only way it could have been made better was to find a construction site or simply play on the freeway!
The centerpiece of the park was two massive metal silos. The first was about ten feet high and ten feet in diameter. The second was somewhat taller (fifteen feet) and narrower (six feet diameter). A slat-and-chain-link bridge connected the two cylinders at the top. Both silos had (easily climbable) post-and-chain-link barriers welded to the top as guard rails. The taller silo had a metal ladder welded to it so that one could get up and down. The shorter silo had three key features: 1) a sloping stack of upright telephone poles (no doubt loaded with creosote) imbedded in the concrete along one side that you could use to scramble to the top. 2) a hole in the top with a fireman's pole in the center leading to the concrete base below. 3) a slide welded to the top that was twice as steep (seriously, I think this thing was at 60 degrees to the ground, whereas most slides are 30 degrees)as any normal slide. It was also taller then most slides - you'd hit the ground at warp speed!
I cannot remember any kid that I played with growing up who didn't get injured in this park at least once. I myself twisted my ankle on it something fierce. Playing tag on this structure was awesome.
It was dangerous as hell, and I can't help but feel that kids these days are missing out by not experiencing something like it.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 02:30 pm (UTC)You call merry-go-rounds, spinners?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 10:42 pm (UTC)