A New Look for the Vanderbilt Playground
Windsor Terrace’s Vanderbilt Playground in Prospect Park (the entrance is at Vanderbilt and Prospect Park Southwest) may eventually look something like the model above, which the Prospect Park Alliance presented to the community last fall. The facility is slated to get a facelift within the next couple of years pending a lengthy city approval process,…
Windsor Terrace’s Vanderbilt Playground in Prospect Park (the entrance is at Vanderbilt and Prospect Park Southwest) may eventually look something like the model above, which the Prospect Park Alliance presented to the community last fall. The facility is slated to get a facelift within the next couple of years pending a lengthy city approval process, according to the Windsor Terrace Alliance. Among the proposed changes: The wooden climbing structure will be replaced with a structure made of bridges, cables and two slides; there will be a large dome made up of a web of ropes with a slide coming off it; and a 30 tall x 11′ long water wall will be created in the tots’ section. Construction on the project is likely to begin in spring 2009, and the Prospect Park Alliance will be presenting modified designs to the community next month.
Renovation of Vanderbilt Playground [WTA] GMAP
Photo of model from the Windsor Terrace Alliance.
THERE WILL BE SWINGS
They will be the bucket type seat swings suitable for small children. You can see them in this picture http://windsorterracealliance.org/images/1-vanderbilt_playground.jpg
Eugene Patron
Press Director
Prospect Park
epatron@prospectpark.org
Actually, the link shows the complete footprint and (off to the left, cropped out of this picture) there are, thank God, swings (although not the wonderful old crack-your-skull variety, they’re the baby-bucket kind).
My favorite crack-your-skull Boomer playground staple was the monkey bars. If you made it to the top and your foot slipped, you could knock out so many teeth as you ratcheted to the bottom (which was, of course, unpadded asphalt). I also recall being deliciously terrified of the weight of the wooden see-saw; if it struck any body part, that body part was pretty badly damaged. Ah, the good old days.
if they cracked their skulls, the computer chip would fall out.
No, no NO! NOT tire swings!! Real life metal-bench-seat-at end-of-long-chains-style SWINGS!!! The NYC original. Of course they’re dangerous. As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I did stuff on those swings that approached a Cirque du Soliel act. Had I fallen off mid-flight, I was literally risking a cracked skull….that’s what made it fun! The best was “swinging” two-on-a-bench with you favorite girl. Heavenly. Gadget-head kids of today have no idea what they’re missing.
When was the last time anyone saw a seesaw in a playground?
My kids loved the tire swings at this playground when they were little, but those also seem to be a thing of the past.
Considering that these things are apparently so dangerous, it’s a miracle any of us survived to adulthood.
It’s not a REAL playground without swings. Period.
The cork screw slide will be a big hit. What’s going to happen to that turtle sandbox? How about adding a bathroom at this site? They need more benches as well. Prospect Park has some great playgrounds, that’s for sure.
Current safety standards make the footprint of a swing set much larger than when I was young. The rubber safety surface is much larger (all we had was compacted dirt when I was a kid) and the fences required to keep people from running into the area have to be fairly far from the swings. Given the square footage required, designers often forego swings in favor of other equipment.
I just had a baby four moths ago, hopefully by the time he is five or six he will be able to enjoy this new playground