Playground for everyone nears finish

PHOTOGRAPHER: Ana Zangroniz

Shannon Weiland of R.E. Woodson Inc. assembles playground equipment at Central Park Tuesday. The former Tiny Tot Playland will re-open in October.

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The drums have been hung tantalizingly close to the ground, ready for small hands to pound.

Workers have anchored the curved rock-climbing wall, with its handholds to support a handicapped child’s first steps or an adventurous toddler’s first climb.

It’s almost ready. In less than a month, children will be able to enter the city’s first handicapped-accessible playground, which has been in the works for years and was funded by the state, county and city.

Workers expect to finish installing the equipment by the end of next week. Then they’ll pour 240 tons of gravel on Central Park’s former Tiny Tot Land, followed by a rubberized surface that won’t bog down a wheelchair.

If the weather holds, children will be welcome at the new playground by the third week of October, Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen said.

Already, the $1 million playground is attracting youngsters, who stared longingly Tuesday at the slides, tunnels and rock wall that had already been installed.

Even the adults who are putting the park together love the toys. They can’t stop playing with one of the items for the music corner, a spinning device that repeats the player’s words at higher and higher pitches, along with various sound effects.

The music corner is designed to challenge a child’s developing motor skills with bells that must be tapped, chimes that ring when a knob is twisted, horns that only play after a button is pressed and drums that need a good hard pounding.

The rest of the playground is a study in developmental play as well. Every device is designed to push handicapped children to their limits, improving their ability to grab, touch and walk.

The apparatus is also designed to allow all children to play together, handicapped or fully mobile. Ramps allow children in wheelchairs to join other children at the top of small towers that were once only accessible by ladder. Toys embedded in the walls, including a maze that must be spun to direct a ball bearing, are now at a proper height for a seated child. Previously, such toys hung just out of reach for children in wheelchairs.

Almost all of the Tiny Tot Land toys have been removed, although many of them will be relocated to other playgrounds in the city after being refurbished this winter. A dozen old bouncing horses, lions and birds have been dragged out of the ground to make room for a tall bulldozer that half a dozen children can sit on together.

There is no sign yet naming the playground, but near one entrance hangs a car, complete with steering wheel and shifter. The license plate on the front of the car, which faces the entrance, reads “NO LIMITS.”