Playground

About The Playground

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Playground equipment

The Dufferin Park playground equipment

The playground at Dufferin Grove was put in around 1983. In 2007, there was $79,000 in the Ward 18 budget to tear this playground down and replace it. The Ward 18 councillor thought that was insufficient funds, and the parents of the playground users liked the playground as it was. So (as of Fall 2017) the original playground is still there. It has swings, a "spider" climber, monkey bars, two slides, and some springy teeter-totters. It also has some little play houses, with roofs that the older kids can climb on.

Simple monkey bars are so much fun, even when you're only four: see the video clip.

The Dufferin Grove playground club -- an idea that didn't work, yet

Playground Maintenance

In public space even more than in people's homes, everything needs regular maintenance. When playground maintenance falls off the radar, a few years down the road the playground will be declared sub-standard, and chances are it will be torn down and replaced with a different model.... read more

Playground history

A friendly letter from park friend Michelle Lansberg, 2007:

"Dufferin Grove Park is a miracle ...practically the best thing about Toronto. Maybe only a mother could fully appreciate what it means. I dreamed of that kind of community when my own children were small. Now, with my daughter (a single mother) and her two lovely little boys, I visit D.G. constantly through the summer. It's cool and fresh beneath the huge trees, children romp freely in the water and in the imagination-stirring creative sand pit. Every day they make new friends in the co-operative atmosphere of the park, and mothers break out of their isolation and meet soul-mates in the great task of nurturing. It is truly "our village" that helps us raise the children.

I am not exaggerating when I say that the welcoming and open spirit of the park and its remarkable feeling of collectivity and sharing have made me feel more like a citizen and lover of this city than practically anything else in my nearly seven decades of living here."

Tetherball

2004: an email from Maya Littman, who did three years of protest about the City's Park playground removals:

My children and I have done some serious playground hopping these past few days, playing/gathering signatures.

Today we went to Dufferin Grove. What an incredible place!! In the 1.5 hours, we must have seen close to 100 people come and go. The sand area is unbelievable. I think I had the most fun of anybody!

Well, they've decided that of all the playgrounds we've been to, Duffering Grove is the best!

To see such action, excitement, families gathering, people happy, communities doing what they should be doing, made me feel good and bad. The city has lost much of this already. Will we be able to salvage what's left?

One man has noticed that people are driving from all over the city to come to the good parks. The idea of the communal park in each neighbourhood is dying.

Some commented on how the children are slowly having everything taken away from them. How are they to feel as adults?

Many people today commented on what the schools have lost. Those that remember the incredible structures that were torn down and squashed are quite sick about it. Many comment on Palmerston School. What that school boasted...and now--what a pathetic joke!

Playground research (citywide)

Some research from CELOS on Playgrounds and Play Structures

posted 2007

Sand pit

The Dufferin Park Sandpit

Sand play in history

The first Metro Parks Commissioner, after World War Two, was Tommy Thompson, much beloved for his love of parks and his good sense. (He put up signs in the parks: please walk on the grass.) We're doing some research at the Toronto Archives for this year's annual report, and we came across a speech he gave at a Parks Conference, in which he told his colleagues: "I passed a playground the other day in which I saw a sandbox that I suspect was twelve feet square. To me, this is an insult to the sand area concept. The time has come when we've got to get bigger in our thinking and realize that, when a group of kids want to carry out something that stimulates their imagination - and this is one of the things we should be responsible for promoting - we should be putting in a sand area half as big as this auditorium. We should be putting in the kind of sand that kids can use to build, and we should not only keep it clean every day, but make sure that it's moist enough to do something with."

The "Big Backyard" -- how Dufferin Grove's sandpit developed

Shaded by many tall Norway maples, it's got some stump tables and long logs for balancing, and even some concrete anchors for fastening a circus-stunts cable. But its main joy is the sandpit - an oval of sand about 20 feet wide by 40 feet long, ringed by big wooden logs. It was put into the park in 1993. A bulldozer came and dug a hole about two feet deep, and loaded the dark soil into a couple of Mack trucks, which took it away. Read more >>

Sand pit play

Safety note: back in 1993 there was a community meeting to find out what people wanted in the park. An adventure playground aimed at older kids was high up on the list, and that's how we got the sand pit. But it turns out that all the kids, of all ages, love the sand pit. That's wonderful, but please remember: the older kids have first rights. Grown-ups, if you're worried about your little ones because the playing is too advanced, take them to the little sandbox. Don't get mad at the older kids for using shovels and doing elaborate building projects. On the other hand, every kid using a shovel has to be careful, and most of them are (we have far fewer injuries in the sandpit than in the regular playground). If anyone sees a child who seems to be unaware of how to handle a shovel (swinging it, using it to be pushy, throwing it) any nearby adult has the power to remind the child to be careful or, if there's no improvement, to take the shovel away and find a park staff. Adults used to look out for (and even admonish) other people's kids, not so long ago, and we can do it again.

Sandpit water usage

The sandpit:

One hour of water running out of the sandpit watertap measures as 416 liters (Lee Valley garden hose water meter). The longest that the tap would be running in a day 10 hours: 4160 liters a day. read more

The Wading pool

Latest News

July 8, 2016, e-mail from Peter White, Parks general supervisor

"We are committing to the removal of the current surface material of the wading pool in 2017. This will leave the surface as bare concrete with the hope being that it is less slippery than the existing surface.

posted November 11, 2012

Can we turn the clock back on Wading Pools?

Since Toronto Public Health got much more involved with the wading pools a few years ago, these once well-used neighborhood play pools have become a lot less enjoyable for families. Click to read more...

slide show: rescue our wading pools

The Dufferin Grove Park Wading Pool, before 2012

1930's history

S.H.Armstrong was the parks commissioner in the 1930s. Here are his rules for playground supervisors, [Toronto archives Box #14661-3, 1932]

“Rain or shine, playgrounds are supervised just the same and all apparatus ready for use…As soon as the supervisor goes on duty, she hangs baby swings, unlocks slide and teeters and puts out pails and shovels….If boys or girls are troublesome, man supervisor will visit the parents. ….[In wading pool] wading only is allowed; no regulation bathing suits; or old clothes used as bathing suits; no change of clothes. If children get clothing wet then out they come. Children 5 years and under may wear sun suits… Lady supervisor does not give any equipment to boys, on man’s morning off or any other time.”

Note that the lady gets one evening off in one week, then in alternate weeks she gets two evenings off. Otherwise she works until 8.30 p.m. whereas the man is down to work until dark. Both man and lady supervisors have to fill out daily reports, which includes census and “dramatic story telling, when taken.” The lady is not allowed to eat her lunch in the playground building but presumably the man is. But neither are allowed to go play tennis at lunch nor to “have men or lady friends come to the playground or in the playground building.”

posted May 1, 2004

[July 2003] The many joys of water in the park

Our wading pool

From our 2002-2003 newsletters

On the first hot day this season, Sunday June 22, there was water all over the park - not a flood, but a stream of good uses of the water that comes to us from Lake Ontario. In the sandpit by the playground, the hose was connected to the tap we bought from Lee Valley Tools. All day, between 10 and 30 kids (and some of their parents) were making channels for a river system - with lots of bridges -that wound through the sandpit and out into further "rivers" leading south. A sprinkler was set up in the wading pool (which was not yet open), and kids were not only running through the sprinkler but also finding out all the ways in which a hose could be kinked to change the water flow and trick people. Up by the pizza oven there was another sprinkler. Kids ran through that one too, and so did the performers from Clay and Paper Theatre when they'd finished their parade through Councillor Silva's annual Summerfest flea market. To the north of the rink house, the Eagles soccer club was running a car wash. They sudsed tow trucks as well as the cars they flagged down at the Dufferin mall light, and at the end they also sudsed each other. Read more of this story in our newsletter excerpts from 2002-2003 >>

Wading Pool News

Wading Pool Renovation Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 Read more

2009 and 2010

2014

2012 to the present Read more

The Cob Courtyard by the Playground

Now in its eleventh year, the cob courtyard is presently a city-run cafe. For the history of the cob courtyard, see the Cob Courtyard page. Read more >>

Cob maintenance

Background

posted in 2005

Toronto Public Health inspectors have told us to get proper sinks for food preparation by the wading pool this coming summer or stop doing the playground food cart. Georgie Donais wants to build a little courtyard around the sinks, and then some. The courtyard walls would be made of "cob," an OLD way of building that's catching on again. Georgie's proposal:

An earthen-walled courtyard will enclose the space to the northwest of the pool, creating an outdoor gathering place. It will be built with a sand-clay-straw mix known as "cob" or "monolithic adobe", which is mixed by foot and applied by hand. The first stage of the project will provide a spot for the washing station required by Public Health so that park staff can continue to serve food by the pool this summer. As the wall extends, it can be built to include arches, doorways, niches, shelves, benches, a puppet window, sculptures and mosaics, small roofs, and a lavatory. Native plantings will be incorporated around and within the courtyard. The project will be planned in stages, starting with the washing station, and extending further as time and resources allow.

Experiential workshops will serve to involve the local community in the building of the courtyard, as well as educate them about natural building techniques. The project will offer workshops for classes of local school children in June, and for the general community over the summer. We will likely have several work bees, where people can sign up to help and to learn. There will also be opportunities for participation on selected weekdays throughout the summer.

This project aims to engage all users of the park, especially the parents and children who make the south end of the park their summer home. They will be the main users of the structure once it is built, and can make sizable contributions to its creation. Adults and children of all ages will be welcomed and encouraged to participate. For children who have less interest in participating than their caregivers, we would like to offer options for supervised play while the adults build.