... there is a small children's park the likes of which I have never seen anywhere else. It was created by Tom Cassily, who founded the City Museum, and it is known as Turtle Playground.
Close to parking there are a few concrete turtles... the largest one being 41 feet long. His shell makes a wonderful mountain for kids to safely climb. You can just see him in the far background of this photo:


Further into the park are more turtles... and a cluster of hatching turtle eggs just aching to be played with:


My personal favorite, however, is a concrete snake that seems to rise from nowhere and gets larger the closer you get to her body & tail. Her comfortable, stretched out pose allows her body to be used for the backrest on a long undulating garden bench:



There is nothing complicated or mechanical about the Turtle Playground. The creatures always elicit smiles and grins from the kids and the lawns under the trees are terrific places for a long relaxed lunch while you watch the children scamper and play. If you watch closely you will see that everyone there is wearing a big smile. And that's the kind of rating that is reserved for real good, very successful parks.

Here's a link to more about this playground:

http://www.forestparkstatues.o...

As a long-time landscape architect for a municipal parks department, I am always interested in what raises the interest of park users. I am also interested in how much they know about costs, liability, vandalism, and lot of other elements of designing and managing public places.

I agree with everything you mentioned above, and I wish we lived in a less litigious world and had more available resources. I learned to play, fall, and get up again in the rough/tumble world of eight brothers. My parents never sued anyone over anything: see-saws, merry-go-rounds, metal sliding boards, jungle gyms, etc. At my grade school, we played baseball and kickball on an asphalt parking lot.

Today, none of those are acceptable to anyone. If you don't have a 12" mat of resilient surface under any children's play structure, you might as well start handing out checks. It has been the defeat of all that is good, creative, and fun for children to explore - just like parents driving their kids (or on a school bus) to every social or recreational event, instead of them walking or biking to get exercise, explore, and learn.

I appreciate this 1996 effort, that it had a substantial patron to get it done, and that it has had adequate resources to maintain it in an attractive and suitable manner. Would t'wer every child's neighborhood had such a place...