July 21-27, 2005

loose canon

This Used to Be Their Playground

Some new rules for a beloved landmark in East Fairmount Park may keep neighborhood kids out.

by Bruce Schimmel

James Strazzella is kvelling to a grateful and very generous audience assembled to celebrate the grand reopening of a destination for urbanites and suburbanites alike: the Smith Memorial Playground in East Fairmount Park. The smiling, portly man is standing atop its greatest attraction: the giant slide, a 40-foot long, 12-foot wide piece of slippery wood that is legendary in the memory of millions of area children (and former children).

Strazzella is beaming proud, and has every right to be. He's rescued what is for many a beloved childhood icon, and he is about to give it back to the children.

But what Strazzella doesn't tell the crowd is that there are new rules for the old park: rules that especially neighborhood kids and their parents have yet to learn. This is now a family playground. Kids are welcome, but only if closely supervised.

For wealthier suburban families — like those attending today's reception — it's a doable regulation. But for families from nearby poor neighborhoods like Strawberry Mansion, it may mean that children who need the playground the most will be left outside the gate.

Smith Playground was once an oasis for all children, near and far, rich and poor. In their bequest, Richard and Sarah Smith specified that the giant slide, the playgrounds, the pool and the humongous Victorian playhouse were all to be free, for now and forever, and for every child.

Until recently, the century-old Smith Playground and Playhouse was dying. The pool, the playgrounds, everything but the huge playhouse was closed.

Strazzella started telling Smith's sad tale of slow decline to local foundations, banks and other benefactors — of which many are here today. They listened. Inside of two years, he raised more than $2.2 million of an estimated $10 million needed to completely renovate the playground and playhouse.

Strazella's mantra to donors and to the crowd today is safety. Smith is to be a safe place for children, a sanctuary, he says. A couple hundred benefactors — some in pinstripes despite the heat — beam back their approval. "What's there not to love about this?" asks Strazzella, thanking the crowd for their generosity, and thanking the attending media for approving pieces in the Inky, the Daily News and The New York Times.

But just beyond the crowd and the cameras, standing at the gate to the Smith Playground, two neighborhood matrons with a passel of kids looked less than in love. A playground employee is telling them the new rules.

At the gate is Constance Witherspoon, a 47-year-old Strawberry Hill native who's been coming here all her life. Now she, an adult friend and a group of nine kids (including a couple of her own grandchildren) can't come in. Smith is now a supervised, family facility — and Witherspoon has one child too many. Four kids, one adult, no exceptions.

The assistant tells Witherspoon that she can call the Smith Playground office on weekdays between 3 and 5 p.m. to make a reservation. "I should be able to fit you in sometime in August," she says. It's July 14, Bastille Day.

As scores of fresh-scrubbed kids of invited guests clamor over the new playground toys, Witherspoon tries a fresh tact. Just beyond the gate is a table brimming with drinks, cookies and lemon ice. It's hot and getting hotter, so the neighborhood matron asks, please, can her children just have an ice? The young park assistant lets her kids get as far as the refreshment table.

Eventually, rules or no rules, Witherspoon and all her children get into the playground and onto the giant slide.

"I understand what they're trying to do. New playground, new rules," says Witherspoon, who adds that the new policy comes as a shock to many neighbors.

"I've been coming here all my life. So did my mother, and she's 77," says Witherspoon, remembering how adults would eat together at the picnic tables, while "lots and lots of kids" ran around everywhere.

"Those days are gone," says Smith's new executive director, Hope Zoss. "It's a litigious society. If somebody trips and falls, it's no longer the family's problem, it's our problem. The premise here is that adult supervision is required. We don't supervise children, we supervise the adults. We're promoting family."

Maybe so. But the playground and the neighborhood will first have to find a common ground to fulfill Richard and Sarah Smith's dream of a place for all children to play.