Comments?
For the basics, see
- Website & Privacy Policies
- How To Get Involved
- The Role of the Park
Search options:
Department Site Map
Custodians:
Printer friendly version
Enclosed Playground
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