Imagination Playground

The vast majority of playgrounds in New York City offer variations on relatively constant themes: slides, swings, ladders, and elevated structures to encourage physical play. I’m grateful for the proliferation of these playgrounds – regardless of where in the city we end up there’s almost always a playground a couple blocks away presenting the perfect opportunity to burn a little energy. But this past weekend we spent time playing at a different type of playground across the river near the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan and it was a refreshing change of pace. The Imagination Playground encourages open-ended and interactive play by forgoing many of the more traditional playground elements in favor of providing children a range of portable building elements for use in exploring, creating, and interacting with the environment around them. (Don’t worry – there’s still a slide and ropes for climbing too!)

We were among the first to arrive after the playground opened on Saturday morning (after first coming before the gates were unlocked – early riser status confirmed!) and found a large pile of blue foam building blocks in different shapes and sizes left in the middle of space. Small wheelbarrows to transport the pieces were a huge hit with my daughter,  and quickly she started to move blocks toward the water feature at the other end. Older children helped too, and she watched with interest as they used some of the pieces to form chutes to direct the water. By the time we left an hour or so later, a group of children played in and around a house-like structure formed from more of the foam blocks, while others explored tools left to play with the large sandpit on the west side of the park.

I loved the creative play Imagination Playground inspired, and since it’s just a single subway stop away, I’m sure we’ll be back in the future. An added bonus was a pretty clean restroom inside the gates of the playground itself – definitely not a given in New York. If you’re visiting around lunchtime or dinnertime, Seaport Smorgasburg a block away offers a range of options for a quick meal.

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