The issue is clear as day in the picture. The parents are goofing off on their phones instead of watching that pre-teen who is trying to see how far he can fling a 4yr old.
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My dad built a swingset for my brother and I when we were children. We loved that thing. Eventually we broke it’s spine, which was not unsubstantial. IIRC it was pressure treated 6"x8". The last year of its life, we were swinging on it so hard the whole structure would hop half-way through the swing cycle. I ended up with a broken arm the day that swing died, but that thing was a hell of a lot of fun.
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That’s not a playground.
This…
Interesting long read on the subject of risky play:
Ah, the carefree stupidity of my childhood. Nothing teaches us how much a scalp wound bleeds like direct observation.
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Yeah, Brooklyn was always a weird place anyway. My ‘ex’ came from there… 
In my experience as a teacher, if the playground is boring they get hurt more, because they’re using it in ways it’s not intended to make it more interesting. Playgrounds need some challenge to them. So make it all out of squishy foam (like they have in some shopping malls) and the kids will climb stuff that isn’t supposed to be climbed and hurl themselves off it.
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The Merry Go Round Broke Down…
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Imagine some children playing with a Frisbee in a park. Now imagine some large, majestic trees scattered throughout that same park. One of the children runs to catch the Frisbee, and WHAM! It’s patently obvious that we
need to confiscate All manner of recreational flying discs, and we need to remove All trees from public parks! Correct?
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We have an adventure playground about 300m from our house. It’s not as disorganised as the one in the article (hey, it is Germany), but it’s amazing. As a bit of background, the government provides money for groups if they want to set something like this in their area. They need to have someone responsible for it and they have a budget for staff and some costs, but a lot of the details are left up to the people in charge. While generally playground operators would be liable for injuries, adventure playgrounds like this one get an exemption.
One of the main people in charge is a retired chef from Italy who likes to do woodwork, so he makes all sorts of interesting sculptures, treehouses and playground equipment by hand.
There’s a concrete tunnel under a hill, which is probably about 10 m long.There are also obstacle courses for climbing the hill, with difficult levels of difficulty. There’s a wooden tower at the top, which you can climb to see the whole playground.
We have a bonfire every Wednesday, in addition to other activities on special days during the year.
The playground has its own clubhouse with a main dining room, living room, library, games room upstairs and one smaller room with a massive mat just for jumping on. The kids get to cook their own Italian food on Friday afternoons, led by the Italian chef and some of the other staff. That evening we had lasagna and tiramisu. All of this is free of charge.
While the kids are playing, the parents get free tea, coffee, biscuits and cake.
On Friday mornings, anyone in the neighbourhood can get together to have a breakfast with German Brötchen, salmon, salami, cheeses, meats etc. It’s amazing. And also free of charge.
The playground has its own workshop where you can bring your bikes, toys and other equipment to get fixed. There are plenty of tools and spare parts to use and one of the guys can help you if you don’t know what to do. Some of the older tools are for the kids to use so that they can familiarise themselves with basic woodworking.
There are usually one or two assistants who go around to make sure everyone is doing OK, but it’s not a structured play environment at all.
While we’re very lucky to have a place so close, it certainly isn’t unique. There’s a similar playground 2-3 km away with a multi-storey treehouse, although it doesn’t have as many planned activities. Yesterday I went to town with my 5 year old son. There was a big teepee in the middle of the pedestrian zone where we were invited to bake Christmas cookies and do other crafts. I’m so impressed at the amount of effort people put in here to make sure children get every opportunity to learn and develop their creativity, and the support they get from the state to do it.
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I love the playgrounds in Germany in general, but this one seems particularly stellar. Which town is it in?
We’re on the outskirts of Hamburg, so there’s a bit more space for this kind of thing than there would be in the inner city. In the city itself, they seem to have more indoor play areas or regular activities for kids in sports halls and schools.
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Thanks!
What I remember is that the wooden ones were much easier to jump off of to see how far you could fly than the flexible strap replacements…Probably alot fewer facial injuries from getting hit in the face with them, though…
The other great thing I remember is using the waxed paper that my sandwich was wrapped in on the slide so you went MUCH faster…My mom taught me that one.
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Hurt the kids. heh heh heh.
That place is AWESOME! I love it when a comment is 10x better than the original post.
Oh man, with places like this, who needs the scouts? It’s got all the fun stuff a scout camp has, but doesn’t have all the negative politicking required of the young participants.
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