Ocean City Decides On Latest Beach Play Structure

OCEAN CITY — Ocean City officials this week approved a play structure for the beach at Somerset Street with “Wally the Whale” emerging, literally and figuratively, from the narrowed-down list of options.

The Mayor and Council on Tuesday approved “Wally the Whale” as the newest addition to the downtown beach at Somerset Street adjacent to the Boardwalk area. The play structure includes a whale’s head emerging from the sand on one end and its tail protruding from the beach on the other end. It includes barnacle-like fixtures on the head and tail allowing kids, and presumably adults, to climb on the structure.

In 2013, the town removed the long-standing wooden playground equipment, or “beach toys,” for a variety of reasons including potential safety hazards and some of the late night activities by some for whom the toys were not intended. In the two years since, the town has wrestled with replacing the beach toys from a financial and practical standpoint.

Two years ago, the newest addition was the dinosaur bones structure at 3rd Street, which became an Internet sensation last fall when Mayor Rick Meehan’s pictures of the bones emerging from the sand during Hurricane Joaquin and the associated Nor’easter went viral. The dinosaur bones structure has appeared to achieve the desired results, but the town continued to seek more beach play structures.

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