A bright, new play space in East Harlem. This was fun and dynamic with a lot of options for kids of all ages to play together.

It does beg a question that’s become a topic here at Brooklyn Playground HQ - do those beehive-shaped ropes apparati take up a lot of space for very little cost, but also very little reward? I rarely see anyone using them except teenagers smoking at the top. If we’re going to give over huge playground real estate for tweens to hide cigarettes, it could probably be done with less effort somewhere else. You can’t even make out up there.

Anyway. Nice playground, and the rest of the park is spacious and well-kept. It is right on the FDR Drive, which probably gets annoying when there’s a traffic jam, but it was quiet and relatively secluded while we were there. There’s also a large seasonal pool in the complex.

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We were here on a beautiful afternoon. We mostly heard street noise from the FDR. 

The noise of the FDR is ever present, and it really detracted from the very beautiful park. However, the playground was new and fun to play at. 

The toddler section was quite busy the afternoon we were here with plenty of children running around. The older children though mostly had strange climbing structures that nobody seemed to understand how to use. 

It does show though how quickly this equipment ages when the parks department doesn't keep it up. The sensory panel with a bunch of gears for turning was filled with leaves. This seems to be a recurring theme with sensory panels – they often stop work and nobody ever bothers to fix them. 

There weren't really enough platforms to climb on and our toddler soon grew bored. They were also especially crowded since the other equipment was mostly confusing to use. 

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Named for slave owning third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The park opened in 1905, and the playground renovated in 2021.