The Laura Sims Skatehouse is located in the Cobbs Creek Rec Center where Walnut Street deadends into Cobbs Creek Parkway. It’s a big, light, airy ice rink, and skate rentals will only set you back three bucks.  Zora and I, joined by our friend Jai, visited on a Sunday afternoon in January.  Zora’s just learning how to skate and mostly hung out on the rail, with brief jaunts into the middle of the ice when she was feeling particularly brave.  Jai, on the other hand, was an ice skating maniac.  Around and around they went until the PA system announced that the session was over and everyone had to leave the ice for the Zamboni to clear things up.

For hours of operation, check out the Parks and Rec page on ice rinks here.

Visited: January 2015.

When Zora and I started this project, we rode our bicycles to the first 40 playgrounds.  They were all within two miles of our house.  By now, when we go out to have a playground adventure, it typically means that we need to first drive for more than half an hour before we get to a playground we have not yet visited.  But today we found a playground we had overlooked.  On a sunny, blustery autumn Sunday afternoon, on our way down to watch some boats race on the Schuylkill River (as part of the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta), we stopped by the 33rd & Wallace Playground.  This playground, just a few blocks from the house that I used to live in 15 years ago, has two great pieces of equipment plus hopscotch and more.   They even have a see-saw.  For the first time, Zora was able to balance me out by sitting way back on one side while I saw way up on the other side.  Seeing her delight at her new-found ability, I started to try to explain levers and Archimedes and simple machines.  Seeing her confusion, I stopped.

Philly Playground Project (not yet reviewed.)

Visited: October 2014

[map coming]

True, there are no playgrounds in Drexel Park, just above the tracks in West Philly.  So why is it included on this blog?  Well, it’s a great place to run around and play soccer or frisbee.  Not so good for hide-and-seek, as Zora pointed out, because there aren’t many good hiding places.  But it’s really here because I lived in this neighborhood back in the 1990s when this lot was a cyclone-fenced-in barren swatch of rubble.  And now, look at this view.  It’s extraordinary.  Given Drexel’s pace of building lately, it might be built on soon or the view might be blocked by construction over the tracks, but for now, this is such a lovely park to hang out in, it really deserved a spot here.

Philly Playground Project (not yet reviewed)

Visited: October 2014

[map coming]

I had off from work and Zora was playing hooky from child care one recent steamy Friday afternoon so we headed over to go swimming in the Kelly Pool and play on the swings in the shadow of the Please Touch Museum.  The playground structure, as shown in the map above, is not all that exciting.  The real draw here is, of course, the pool.  It’s one of the few (public) pools that we’ve found in Philly that is in proximity to trees and has grass. And it’s huge.

Philly Playground Project (not yet reviewed)

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Visited: July 2014

It’s kind of embarrassing that it took us two years into this project to add this playground to our project.  Zora goes to the childcare center next door to this elementary school and frequently plays on this playground.  But somehow, it got overlooked.  The playground is pretty standard futuristic fare.  What really excites Zora, though, is the yard just below the playground that has lots of worms and bugs and other things to discover and show off.  During the day, the students at the playground use the playground and yard.  But in the evenings and weekends, neighborhood kids claim it as their own.

Philly Playground Project (not yet reviewed)

Visited: May 2014

I really like Miles Mack Playground for lots of reasons.  I see it from the train when I’m coming home from Harrisburg, and it’s a sign that I’m almost home.  There’s a bunch of new equipment, plus several pieces of retro steel equipment, including an amazing old spaceship monkey bars.  Zora’s feeling a lot braver these days that she has in the past.  She didn’t used to go on the tall monkey bars, but when I saw her scamper up those monkey bars recently, it made me feel, well, like I was getting older.  I felt older thinking about the recent history of this playground.  Zora wasn’t born yet when, in September 2008, Miles Mack, a dedicated mentor, peacemaker, and coach, was gunned down after a basketball tournament that he had organized.

Philadelphia Playground Project (reviewed 6/11/2011)

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Visited: March 2014

Parkside Evans Playground is in West Philly and, if you look the right way, it looks like you’re in the woods.        It’s a fairly typical rec center playground with the usual equipment, with one difference: it has a stegosaurus climber just like they have at Clark Park and the UC Swim Club and, to date, not seen at any other playgrounds.  It would be cool to hang out here some night when there was a show at the Mann, located just over the hill to the east.

Philadelphia Playground Project review (7/6/11)

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Visited: February 2013

Philadelphia Playground Project (no review)

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Visited: August 2012

This small playground is right around the corner from the Philadelphia Zoo, but I’m not going to lie to you.  For the first time, I felt a little uneasy visiting this playground.  We were there on a Sunday morning around 11am and it was packed… with young men drinking beer and smoking up.  Zora didn’t seem to mind, though, and she loved the dragon statute and the bird rocker.  The playground structure itself has a neat and unusual blue climbing wall similar to what exists over at Malcolm X Park (one of our favorites.)  The rec center itself is dominated by a basketball court which is really the focus of the energy in the park.

Philadelphia Playground review (6/15/2011)

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This playground is located in the triangle formed by Lancaster Avenue, Wyalusing Avenue, and North 48th Street.  The grassy park is known as both Durham Park and Clara Muhammad Square.  But whatever you call it, it’s a serene park with beautiful trees, a gazebo, plenty of park benches, and a clean well-maintained park.  My favorite part?  The old school merry-go-round like many of us had on the playgrounds of our youth.

Philadelphia Playground Project (not reviewed)

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Visited: September 2012

This is a great little playground just east of 52nd Street, nestled among several streets of two-story rowhouses.  There aren’t any significant shade trees, but it’s otherwise got everything you might need.  Plus, there are 10 swings.  No waiting!

Philadelphia Playground Project review (2/13/12)

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Visited: August 2012

As you’re heading north on 52nd Street, you might not see this small playground on your left.  There’s a fruit seller selling remarkably cheap fruit on the corner.  Right behind him, through a break in the fence, you can take a time machine back 30 years where all the equipment was made of–gasp!–steel.  It’s small, but it’s fun.  And it reminded me a lot of my elementary school playground.

Philadelphia Playground Project review (not yet reviewed)

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Visited: August 2012

This little neighborhood playground has both modern play equipment and a section for retro equipment.  (Sadly, the retro equipment looks like it hasn’t gotten much love recently: the slide is dirty, the swing is not in good shape.)  I’m a big fan of the rainbow climbers.  Zora’s not brave (crazy?) enough to climb to the top, yet, but she keeps going higher and higher and, I suspect, will very soon go over it.  This is another one of those playgrounds where the real draw seems to be the basketball courts.

Philadelphia Playground Project review (6/12/11)

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Visited: August 2012

This is a great playground attached to an elementary school with a wide open blacktop play area, a cool playground that says it was built by the Eagles, a map of the United States painted on the blacktop, a couple foursquare games, a separate small tot area, and some great murals.

Philadelphia Playground Project review (6/12/11)

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Visited: August 2012

This is a great neighborhood spot, always well used and located right between an ice skating rink and a swimming pool.  On the warm Saturday afternoon we visited, the two picnic areas were mobbed with family gatherings.  And the swimming pool–open for public swim weekdays from 1-4 and weekends from 12-5–was inviting.

Philadelphia Playground Project (not yet reviewed)

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Visited: August 2012

The Daroff Samuel Elementary School has, what appears to be, an amazing playground.  Unfortunately, unlike some elementary school playgrounds, it’s all tantalizingly locked up behind a chain link fence during off hours.  Rats.

Philadelphia Playground Project (not yet reviewed)

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Visited: November 2012

Nichols Park appears to be a neighborhood town square located in mid-block.  The playground equipment is fine.  But the crown of the park is really the large gazebo that looks perfectly suited for summertime concerts.

Philadelphia Playground Project (reviewed on 12/31/2011)
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Visited: November 2012

Granahan Playground sits on a little hill and offers a surprising view of the Philadelphia skyline.  But that’s not the best part of the playground.  It has one of the largest connected structures with a bridge hat trick: a curved bridge, a straight bridge, and a bouncy bridge.  It has three pentagon structures with interior stairs and a dozen climbers.  It has rings, monkey bars (including 2 on the bottom of one of the bridges), and a chin up bar.  And that’s just the larger of the two structures.  Oddly for such an otherwise well-kept playground, half of the eight swings are missing.  There’s also a small sprayground, two hockey rinks (one appears to have been turned into a skate park, but there were no skaters when we visited), and lots of fields.  And it’s also home of the world famous Overbrook Monarchs!

Philadelphia Playground Project (reviewed on 5/19/12)
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Visited: November 2012

Commodore John Barry Elementary School is a sleek, relatively new school building with an exterior made of sparkling colorful bricks and gray ribbed metal work.  Compared to the split face concrete block that mars so many new schools because of budget architecture, it really stands apart.  So it’s somewhat surprising that the playground is, to put it bluntly, lame.  It’s a small piece with nothing interesting on it, and one can’t even play a good game of tag on it.  The rubberized faux asphalt is unusual, but otherwise, there’s nothing here that should draw your attention.  UNLESS, as is the case with some elementary schools, it’s unusual in that it’s not locked up from the public during off hours.

Philadelphia Playground Project Review (reviewed on 12/31/2011)
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Visited: November 2012

The Papa playground has two play areas–one for older and one for younger kids.  It’s in a little copse of trees at 68th & Lansdowne Ave.  The afternoon we visited, Zora played Billy Goat Gruff on the knolls surrounding the playground and a fierce neighborhood football game raged 50 yards to the north on the playing fields.  There’s a sorta-retro see-saw in the older kids lot along with a cool stegosaurus rocker.

Playground website.

Philadelphia Playground Project review (5/29/12)

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Visited: November 2012