Oakridge Park

Equipment by KSL.

Surface: Wood chips.

I always felt it was my duty to visit Oakridge Park, since I’m Danforth Dad and Oakridge is the closest playground to the intersection of Danforth and Danforth.

To those who aren't familiar with the east end, yes, there are two Danforths. Avenue and Road. Actually, if you want to get technical and historical about it, there are four Danforths: the two in Toronto, one in Cobourg, and one in Prince Edward County. Even cooler is the fact that all four were once connected as part of the first continuous road on the north shore of Lake Ontario, built by a shifty contractor who may or may not have been in favour of the Americans taking over the whole continent.

But I digress. More on the historical stuff can be found here.

Oakridge Park’s playground isn’t going to bowl anyone over, but on an unseasonably warm day in March we were happy to make it our first new playground visit of 2025.

The equipment is by the manufacturer KSL, whose stuff is always very metallic and harsh-looking, but has its charm. I’ve always liked KSL’s “Rainbow Climber” – an arching rope structure that has you climbing ropes sometimes, walking on them at other times. There is (technically) a splash pad, but as far as I can tell it comprises one single sprayer, so it almost feels wrong listing it as a splash pad, since you could get the same effect at home by taping a garden hose to a tripod.

There’s also a soccer field, and my son had a blast taking his first outdoor shots of the season. At the field’s south end you can watch the GO and Via trains pass by on a hill so steep that from a distance it looks like the trains are balancing on the top of a wall.

So while Oakridge isn’t a blockbuster, we had a great time being outside of the first truly warm day of the year. And it's always fun to stand at the corner of both Danforths.