Category Archives: Playgrounds

did anyone else have trouble…

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did anyone else have trouble getting the parkie to open up and hand out the balls and other equipment (checkers and stuff like that)? there used to be 2-3 parkies in the house who would be playing cards and wouldn’t open up unless you got a mom to go over. our park was not too close so we didn’t go very often. we had see saws (see saw margery daw), sliding ponds (i’d forgotten that term!), monkey bars (wish they were still around), a ‘pool’ (just a bunch of sprinklers in a recessed area. the only way you got a ‘pool’ out of it was to plug the drains with tissues), skully board (bottle caps), sand pile and a big grassy area. it was up the hill from ps11. can’t remember the street name but the carmelite convent was up there, too. (da bronx) we did the swing tricks, too. one standing, one sitting, ducking under, standing up for maximum ‘pump’. would we kill our kids for doing this now? thanks for the memories!!!

I once had the brillant…

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I once had the brillant idea of going down the sliding pond on my skateboard. It worked great until I got to the bottom at my skateboard hit the floor. Before I could blink, I wound up in the sandbox. As if you couldn’t guess, I NEVER tried that again.

That’s funny… Everyone…

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That’s funny… Everyone I know calls them Underdogs, not underducks. Maybe it’s different in different places (I’m from Chicago) You push the person in the swing, then say One! (push), Two! (push), Three! (push)… Underdog! And you push hard and run under the swing. The 2 kids I babysit for are constantly asking for them. I usually say no, especially with the older one (longer legs), cause I don’t wanna get kicked in the back! It is fun to give, though!

I think that Fred (Wednesday,…

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I think that Fred (Wednesday, December 22, 1999) is right. I grew up in Brooklyn and we always called it a “sliding pon”. I think that what’s happened is that when some of us reached adulthood and tried to make some sense of this phrase to non New Yorkers we assumed that it must have really been a “sliding pond” and that we were just mis-remembering. In fact, I’m convinced that it was “sliding pon” which is a corruption of another term for that piece of playground apparatus. Maybe some posters will suggest what that term might be.

In “Da Bronx” I was fortunate…

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In “Da Bronx” I was fortunate enough to live across the street from Bronx Park which is (if you include the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Gardens) roughly half the size of Central Park. Right in front of my house was the 219th Street playground where we had it all going on. Sliding ponds, monkey bars, swings, bball court, see-saws. Actually the playground was broken into 3 parts. One for the kiddies, one for the older kids, and then the bball court. When i was very young (late 60’s) the “Parky” (guy in green outfit who worked for the city) would open up the parkhouse (bathrooms) and turn off/on the sprinklers which was great in those dog days of summer. Then in the 70’s, I don’t recall seeing much of this Parky (think his name was George) and the parkhouse got vandalized and the sprinklers never worked anymore. Other than those black rubber mats being added under the swings, etc. the playground went downhill. But I still have found memories of that place. Seems like an eternity ago.

Isn’t the internet great…

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Isn’t the internet great ?? My buddy and I were playing with his two year old daughter in Florida and asked his wife what she called a “slide” when she was young. My friend and I are from New Jersey and our parents grew up in the Bronx & Brooklyn. We always called it a “sliding pond” (although I must confess, I always thought that the word was “pon” … because everyone knows that a “pond” is water, y’know, like a lake)Anyway, his wife is from Maryland and never heard of a sliding pond. We immediately hit the ‘net & BINGO…..we knew that we were not alone. It’s a SLIDING POND !!! My lasting memory is the metal stairs with the name of the manufacturer in Litchfield, Michigan (I think). Litchfield is kinda like a name I know, so it stuck with me. Sliding ponds do burn your ass, though…..so give me a new water slide anyday now !!!!