Posted on 07/22/2008 11:55:31 AM PDT by Alouette
These city playgrounds aren't for child's play.
Black rubber mats designed to break a child's fall turn blistering hot in the summer, soaring to higher than 165 degrees, a Daily News investigation found.
Doctors at two city hospital burn units reported seeing 16 to 18 young children with playground burns a year, mostly from the mats under junglegyms and sliding boards.
"I have nightmares," said Anne Casson, whose toddler son, Will, ditched his shoes at Carl Schurz Park on the upper East Side one day last May.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Jagged rocks? Such luxury! We had NOTHING, just empty space all the way down. We would have been grateful for rocks!
I still do have two
Hope you do too
They pretty much left us alone till little Timmy found the shot gun shell and started pounding on it with a rock. They also were fussy about bear sightings.
Ah! those monkey bars were get you ready for basic training!
I went to a new Elementary School that had just been built and for the first two years the playground was shell gravel.
MONKEY bars?
Isn’t that racist?
We had nice soft blue-stone gravel at our local playground. They later replaced it with kitty-litter sand. Monkeybars were great for getting rid of those unwanted baby teeth.
Two things.
Stray cats like sand too.
Sand gets tracked into the SUV carpet.
Most playgrounds are rarely fenced. Sand also gets in kids shoes and clothes.
Mulch like that used in landscaping often works pretty well for playgrounds. It clings to shoes and clothes less, but isn't mess free either.
Shredded car tires are also an option, but can get pretty hot in the hot sun.
Mats are likely easier to maintain, but black is pretty obviously not the ideal color for keeping them reasonably cool.
The Parks Commissioner said the mats would not be removed, and that their playgrounds “are the safest in the world”.
Sure, Mr. Commissioner, as long as no one falls while they are playing.
[unexploded ordnance]
You had UNexploded ordnance? Ours were exploding all the time.
We had dirt and the park with the most stuff had one swingset, one slide and one set of monkey bars. It was a really tall slide and we went there without our parents and we took wax paper to make us go faster.
Spoiled brat.
We never got toys like that.
Ondnance? Aye, you were lucky...
Our jungle gym consisted of a single greased pole suspended sideways over an open-top septic tank.
There was a great playground in Raleigh that uses ground up rubber from old tires as the “sand.” It’s a very interesting recycling use. Slightly bouncy but doesn’t get everywhere like sand or wood chips.
[These city playgrounds aren’t for child’s play.]
...and yet you take them there?
****Jagged ROCKS for us....***
That was it? We had broken beer bottles and cactus! Made us tough!
We learned why it’s important to hang on tight. -mks
Shotgun shells are GREAT fun for the kiddies.
All they need to do is just slide one into a short piece of the proper diameter galvanized pipe (taken from Dad’s garage), prop the pipe up on some boards so as to aim it at its intended target, then stand back and shoot at the primer with a BB/pellet gun.
It is both fun and educational “play” for any child. It helps them develop their burgeoning marksmanship skills and can even necessitate the learning of first-aid procedures in a “real world” environment.
Just don’t ask me how I know this.
Alligators. Don’t forget the alligators.
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