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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Today's Playgrounds May Be Too Safe, Critics Warn

Eliminating towering monkey bars, tall slides may be safer, but it can keep kids from conquering fears

When seesaws and tall slides and other perils were disappearing from New York’s playgrounds, Henry Stern drew a line in the sandbox. As the city’s parks commissioner in the 1990s, he issued an edict concerning the 10-foot-high jungle gym near his childhood home in northern Manhattan.

“I grew up on the monkey bars in Fort Tryon Park, and I never forgot how good it felt to get to the top of them,” Mr. Stern said. “I didn’t want to see that playground bowdlerized. I said that as long as I was parks commissioner, those monkey bars were going to stay.”

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I loved the monkey bars. He is right IMO. Kids who were exposed to monkey bars, tire swings, and metal slides made out just fine. People seem to want to change everything so children can only play on styrofoam peanuts and cotton balls. Skinned knees are all a part of being a kid. Even broken bones. It is just a natural thing. Not good, but not lethal. Life if full of bangs and bumps. You just have to deal with it. You cannot protect children or anyone for that matter form everything.

Anonymous said...

No, they're not safe enough until greedy lawyers run out of ways to sue when little Suzie scapes her knee, and little Suzie's crack head single mom is held responsible for her kid.

Bullard Construction said...

CUT DOWN ALL TREES NOW!!! When I was a kid, that's all I did, I think! The view was FANTASTIC from there, and the mailman never knew you were there! I once took a nap up there... oh, the good old days!