On the warm May afternoon that we visited Towey Rec Center, two men were engaged in a heated game of handball.  We stopped to watch them and, noticing us, they kindly stopped swearing.  I appreciated that.  Towey was really beautiful.  Lots of nice shade trees and the mid-century modern architecture of the rec center building with its intricate glass mosaic is quite striking.  Zora goes through phases where she loves certain parts of playgrounds.  Most recently, she’s been really into tic-tac-toe games.  But now, she really loves the monkey bars.  She swung expertly and repeatedly along the bars at Towey.  Afterwards, she was puzzled to see blisters has formed on her palms.

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Visited: May 2015

Moffet Elementary School looks like it has an awesome playground.  Unfortunately, it was locked when we went to visit it on a warm Sunday afternoon in May.  There are lots of things that our beleaguered, underfunded Philly schools need.  But one thing we ought now to let go off is that our schools should serve our communities and be welcoming to families in the evenings and in the weekends.  I have no idea if Moffet has any particular issues that require it to lock up its school yard on the weekends.  But we should work towards making all of our schools more community focused.  And one way to do that is to let kids play on playgrounds even when school isn’t in session.

Visited: May 2015

I’m embarrassed to say that, although I’ve lived in Philly for over a decade, this was my first time visiting Norris Square.  I had heard so much about it, but never had a reason to seek it out.  And that’s one of my favorite parts of this playground project: getting to visit so many different neighborhoods in the City.  Norris Square reminded me a lot of some of the neighborhood parks I used to visit in the Mission when I lived in San Francisco years ago.  Groups of Spanish-speaking elders sit around on the many, many benches under beautiful old shade trees.  The playground is comfortable, although the slider bar is missing as is one of the swings.  Small mosaics pepper the park.  I hope it’s not another 12 years before I make it back again.

Visited: May 2015

Zora, Jai, and I spent about an hour playing tag on this neighborhood playground, overlooked by what appears to be an abandoned factory for the Sterling Paper Company.  While we played, a freight train, which had been idling on the tracks that run next to the playground, came to life and moved out, while kids and adults on the basketball court and the baseball field continued playing.  Like a lot of neighborhood playgrounds, there’s nothing particularly unique about this spot, except perhaps the old stand-alone sliding board.  But also like a lot of neighborhood playgrounds, I’m sure a lot of neighbors spend time here on the playgrounds, fields, and swimming pool, especially on days when it’s not quite so gloomy as the day we visited.

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Visited: March 2015

This slice of playground has two play structures and a large red and blue padded play area.  On the day we visited, it was grey and a little bit cold.  It seems like it would be a much nicer place to be once the leaves are on the trees.  Instead, I’ll remember this playground mostly because there is a large cemetery across the street, not because of the equipment itself.  For a little nostalgia, check out out the 1962 photo of the swing sets at the playground posted below.

Samuel Rec Center from 1962:

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Visited: March 2015

This is a great site and it’s got a lot going on: a pool, basketball courts, tennis courts, a baseball field, a rec building, and two playgrounds: one for bigger kids and one for smaller ones.  It’s also in a most unfortunate location, dropped down between I-95 to the east and busy Richmond Street to the west.  Plus, it’s across the street from a Wawa and Sunoco (neither of which, by the way, have public bathrooms.)  But for such a bad location, it does well for itself.  We kicked the soccer ball around for awhile and climbed on the retro rainbow triplets.  It’s hard to escape the noise and motion of I-95, but if you have to be this close to it, you might as well be playing on a playground.

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Visited: March 2015

One of the cool things about documenting our visits to playgrounds over several years is that I get to look back at photos of Zora and remember how she interacted with playgrounds when she was 3 or 4 compared to how she interacts with them today when she’s 6.  I remember, for instance, when she was too scared to climb up the retro climbing rainbows they have at Stokley Rec Center.  But when we visited Stokley, she mounted them carefully, but determinedly.  It didn’t hurt that her friend Jai was there to encourage her.  Stokley is a solid rec center, but nothing particularly absorbing.  I couldn’t help but think how things would really be much more pleasant if they planted some trees around the playground.

June 2014 article on the playground (with video!)

Visited: March 2015

A lot of pavement surrounds the playground, but beyond the playground are large playing fields and a swimming pool.  We visited this playground on a cloudy Sunday afternoon with Zora’s friend, Jai.  The play structures captured some of their attention, but mostly we played soccer, using the large red wall in the first picture below as the goal.  It’s squarely in the middle of a neighborhood of two-story rows.  The ground surfaces have been beaten up pretty badly and are desperately in need of repair.
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Visited: March 2015

On an otherwise gray February afternoon, the colors of Hagert Playground lit up the entire block. A lovingly painted sign and a red yarn heart tied to the fence welcomes kids to the park. The playground equipment could use a good scrubbing, but the splashes of color outweigh the mean-spirited graffiti. On the afternoon we were there, a 13-year-old kid with a stopwatch was coaching several younger boys through an obstacle course that he had set up for them on, around, and through the playground. All in all, a great and welcome neighborhood playground.

Visited: February 2015

One corner of Pop’s Playground is an awesome and beautiful and very busy skate park which, based on what I read on the internet, has been open since July 2009.  But, sadly, the rest of Pop’s Playground needs some love. No playground looks its best on a gray February afternoon, but Pop’s is sadly marred by encyclopedic graffiti, broken and missing swings, and torn up mats and concrete.  On the plus side, there are two play structures and a basketball court and a small sprayground.  But here’s what I have to say about Pop’s Playground: Zora left her soccer ball there.  And when we realized that we had left it there and came back 20 minutes later, it was still there.  Plus, Zora got a kick out of driving on the wavy cobblestones of Trenton Avenue.

Visited: February 2015

The Cione Playground fits into a wedge of roads just south of Lehigh Avenue.  The playground seems like a bit of an afterthought, really.  The real draws are the basketball courts, floor hockey rink, soccer field, baseball field, and swimming pool.  But the playground’s spacious, at least, and on the day that Zora and I visited, she really wanted to play soccer so we had a lot of fun kicking the ball around and against the building.  It skipped around a lot on the broken concrete, though, but at least the fences prevented it from skiddering out into traffic.

Visited: February 2015

This small corner lot across the street and behind a Wawa doesn’t seem like it would attract many people looking for solace or peace.  But it’s for kids, though, and it does provide a fenced-in concrete patch to run around in.  Plus, it’s on a lovely little block of rowhouses, and who wouldn’t want a sliding board right outside your house?

Visited: February 2015