Surface: wood chips.
Equipment by Landscape Structures.
Oh, those Beach kids. They have it all, don’t they?
They live far from downtown, but with a little strip of Queen Street that has everything they need – toy stores, ice cream stores – and of course, there’s the Beach itself. Not to mention one of the most popular and highest-rated playgrounds in the city over at Kew Gardens.
But if that one is too crowded for comfort, the playground at Kew Beach Public School might be a good alternative, especially if your kid is older than 4, or a keen climber.
Barely visible from Queen Street, the playground at Kew Beach PS sits in a nicely landscaped, sloping area on the east side of the school, and I’ve never seen it busy outside of school hours. The equipment is in decent shape for a school playground, and has lots of climbing and monkey bar-type elements to keep your monkey busy.
The slide on the main climber, while not overly high, is a 45-degree plastic child-launcher that can be unexpectedly exhilarating, both in terms of speed and static energy. You kind of feel obligated to stand at the bottom and catch your kid, but you know that as soon as you make contact with them, you’ll get a nice little static electric shock. Which your child will be mad at you for.
We had a great time on our visit here. It was deserted for about 20 minutes while we played, and then a spunky little boy, aged probably around six, wandered over. He was dressed head-to-toe in an obviously brand-new spy outfit, which made him look like the Doogie Houser of the SWAT team.
He didn’t say anything, but just stood there, awkwardly close. He was close enough that I could have reached out and spoken into his plastic walkie-talkie, which I was very tempted to do.
But I didn’t. Instead I hazarded a cautious, “hi. That’s a fun outfit.”
He didn’t smile.
He leaned just slightly closer, as if to impart a very highly-guarded secret. I could see a combination of sugar and next-level imagination behind his eyes. He cupped one hand to his mouth.
“This area,” he said, “is not secure.”
“I understand,” I replied.
Quietly, and with a knowing nod to the tiny secret agent, I collected my daughter and strapped her into the bike seat, saluting him as we pedalled away.
Beach kids, man. Beach kids.
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