# Vintage playground equipment - images



## NancyNGA

Can you imagine these passing safety inspection today?



And talk about monkey bars! mg1:





We had one of these at our elementary school.  You would have been mangled if you fell into the center of this thing.



And wood plank seesaws.  A recipe for splinters.  Ask me how I know (no, don't).


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## Falcon

I remember most of them except those more elaborate ones.


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## Pappy

Somehow we survived these contraptions. I did do the forward somersault off a see-saw once. Wasn't funny at the time, but I didn't break anything.


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## NancyNGA




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## Pappy

The old Coney Island spin wheels. They must have had an ambulance on standby.


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## NancyNGA




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## Karen99

Wow.  I remember the regular stuff at my elementary school.  I loved the rings and monkey bars...and remember more than once  landing on my back knocked out and seeing stars.  It was an occupational hazard..lol


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## SifuPhil

The lawyers would be all over these today.

Unfortunately.

Part of why so many kids today are out of shape. 

I too took my share of falls from monkey bars, but none that looked like the pictured ones - they look like something that astronauts would use for training.


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## Pappy

Remember these vomit inducers? If you didn't get sick, you could learn to fly at no charge. The landing was a little rough.


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## imp

Thanks for the memories! Our playground had two slides, one about 8 feet high, the other at least doube that. Growing up, you just mastered safe use of the smaller first year, then maybe next year, the BIG one! Climbing up was likely the riskiest part. I don't recall ever seeing any kid hurt at the place, no falls.   imp


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## Pappy

Ah yes, the long metal slides that actually felt like the skin on your legs was peeling off. And, on a hot day, you could fry an egg on them.


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## NancyNGA

Maybe this should be called a "scoot" instead of a slide?  Note safety feature at top of larger slide.


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## NancyNGA

Pappy said:


> Remember these vomit inducers? If you didn't get sick, you could learn to fly at no charge. The landing was a little rough.


Pappy, ours was bent almost as much as this one, and high off the ground, too. Never could ride it.



Still remember the day I got up enough courage to do a complete loop over on these (1st grade).  I was probably the last one in the class to learn. Such a sissy.


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## SifuPhil

Remember this?



On a concrete playground?


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## NancyNGA

:lol1:


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## jujube

Pappy said:


> The old Coney Island spin wheels. They must have had an ambulance on standby.



We had one of those at our local amusement park.  To add to the fun, if you _did_ manage to stay in the middle, you got shocked.  Win-win!


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## jujube

Ahhhh, those metal slides that seared the flesh off the back of your legs in summer and the wooden swingset seats that were guaranteed to, at least once a year, knock out a tooth or ensure a trip to the emergency room for a combination of concussion, stitches and/or an extremely nasty hematoma.  

Our elementary school playground had what we called "the maypole".  As I can best describe it, it was a large metal ring about 10 feet across that was suspended from a pole by four chains on a swivel.  Several children could hang onto it and start running around and then lift up their feet, thus spinning it.  Unfortunately, the revolutions would become unbalanced and the ring would start crashing into the pole, with smashed fingers as the results.  That didn't stop us from using it daily at recess.  We weren't too smart.


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## NancyNGA




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## NancyNGA

This is my kind of playground!  What do you think of this idea?

Adventure Playgrounds - Introduction


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## Pappy

In my opinion, this is a true play ground. Let the kids decide, not the adults telling them what they need to do.


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## fureverywhere

Then we do Kickstarter to give that poor woman new teeth


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## SifuPhil

As a kid I'd probably love that playground, but as a parent I'd be terrified.


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## SeaBreeze

Witch's Hat


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## Yaya

I remember all of these. Almost got killed from a couple of them. I would rather remember slushy cold cokes in a glass bottle from a big red vending machine for a nickel than the old playground disasters. That's when gas was 2 and 3 cents a gallon. Movies were 25 cents. Those were the days.....


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## fureverywhere

Like I've said before. Our backyard led out onto a huge construction site. That was where we played for several years. The oldest maybe ten, but little brothers and sisters would be forced on us and come some days. Really except for a scraped knee here or a bruised elbow there weren't any out of the ordinary injuries. There would always be daredevils especially bike riding...But I feel many kids can be logical to a degree with safety. If you throw a rock at somebody you're going to be grounded. If you fall off that dirt mound it's going to hurt so step carefully. If your little sister is with you, keep her away from the rebar that's sticking up. We got filthy in the mud but nobody really got hurt. Maybe we were just lucky.


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## SifuPhil

I don't know, Fur ... I must have had some loose wiring somewhere, because I could manage to injure myself in a room full of down pillows.


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## Pappy

Are you sure they weren't still on the goose, Phil?


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## SifuPhil

Pappy said:


> Are you sure they weren't still on the goose, Phil?



!!!

THAT explains it! 

All those years ... Mom just told me I was accident prone.


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## NancyNGA

Phil, maybe you need to remodel your computer room to include more safety features.


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## SifuPhil

NancyNGA said:


> Phil, maybe you need to remodel your computer room to include more safety features.



LOL - no, my playroom already looks like that!


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## Butterfly

fureverywhere said:


> Like I've said before. Our backyard led out onto a huge construction site. That was where we played for several years. The oldest maybe ten, but little brothers and sisters would be forced on us and come some days. Really except for a scraped knee here or a bruised elbow there weren't any out of the ordinary injuries. There would always be daredevils especially bike riding...But I feel many kids can be logical to a degree with safety. If you throw a rock at somebody you're going to be grounded. If you fall off that dirt mound it's going to hurt so step carefully. If your little sister is with you, keep her away from the rebar that's sticking up. We got filthy in the mud but nobody really got hurt. Maybe we were just lucky.



We also had a little common sense, and responsibility, too -- like looking out for your little sister.


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## Butterfly

I LOVED the swings.  Matter of fact, until recently I'd go down to the school ground on a summer evening and swing and swing and swing.  I got some funny looks, but oh well . . .  About a year or so ago, they put up a locked chain link fence around the school ground.  Makes me mad -- especially since my property taxes (paid with much anguish) pay for the schools here.

I liked the monkey bars and that merry-go-round thing, too when I was a kid.  I didn't go on the slide much because I didn't like splinters or having the backs of my legs fried.


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## NancyNGA

Another Adventure Playground, Crawley, West Sussex, England, 1967


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## SifuPhil

Setting fires in the park! That was one of our favorite activities ...


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## Pappy

Imagination is a wonderful thing. These kids are having a ball.


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## Pappy

Yep....


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## SifuPhil

Pappy said:


> Yep....



LOL - and that was just for the S'mores!


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## Pappy

Not today, methinks.


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## fureverywhere

We used to set fire to caps or matchbooks. The whole dirt hill might have been a bit much..." Everybody in the house, no TV for a week".


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## NancyNGA

April 13, 2015.  Students on playground in Yichuan, Shaanxi province, China[SUP]1[/SUP] 





















[SUP]1[/SUP]They could not all fit inside the building to take an exam.  School officials said sitting for the exam outside would test the students' organizing capacity.


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## NancyNGA

:eek1:
Playing here would have been a *real* adventure. Who needs equipment.   Picture not so great (Thank goodness!)  

From _New York Evening Post_, June 21, 1924. 

Caption: _Burial field on West 212th street, where pioneers of North Manhattan were laid to rest, now is used as playground by children, who parade frequently with skulls unearthed from old cemetery._


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## fureverywhere

Well we have to consider that in the 20's some kids didn't have "childhood" as later generations knew it. They weren't as sensitive certainly. They might go out to work in the farms or mills in the city. They might be out hawking papers at a very young age. Doing piecework with their family for a few dollars. Childhood as a time to play and go to school wasn't really created till the 1950's from what I understand.


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## NancyNGA

.


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## Pappy

3,2,1,....playtime.


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## NancyNGA

A playground where you can get away from your kids for a while.  Or get lost.


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## Pappy

What can I say? Really......


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## Yaya

Oh my word! Hilarious. This is real?  LOL!


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## NancyNGA

*Grant Park Playground, Monash, Australia*
For children and adults, free public use, opened in the 60's.  Concerns about public liability led to its eventual closure in 1992.  It reopened in 1996 with less "dangerous" equipment. 

Monster slide





Riding a rail




　
Rocking horse, rocking giraffe, and rocking...uh...chair?


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## NancyNGA

September, 1953


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## Pappy

Why are playground equipment makers so obsessed with rear end?. And yes, theses are real.


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## NancyNGA

...


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## Guitarist

Pappy said:


> Ah yes, the long metal slides that actually felt like the skin on your legs was peeling off. And, on a hot day, you could fry an egg on them.



And if you brought a sheet of wax paper and rode on it ... wow!  Turbo slide!  

I'm glad I was a kid when I was a kid and not nowadays.


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## jujube

Guitarist said:


> And if you brought a sheet of wax paper and rode on it ... wow!  Turbo slide!
> 
> I'm glad I was a kid when I was a kid and not nowadays.



Bread wrappers, when they were waxed paper.  My grandma saved all of hers for us.


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## jujube

Jumping off the swings at their highest point, flying through the air and (hopefully) landing on your feet.  I was fearless.  I dared the boy next door to try it; I'll never forget the sound of his arm breaking.  His mother _made sure _I never forgot it.  

And him?  Well, he got even with me the next Christmas when he shot me over the left eye with his Daisy Red Ryder BB Rifle.  It _was_ my fault.....I wanted to shoot it and tried to pull it away from him; it made him pull the trigger and the rest is history.  I went running home with a little stream of blood running down my face.  My mother freaked out and my dad was annoyed that he had to get up off the couch where he was trying to take a nap.  He got the bb out with a needle, butterflied the puncture, gave me a tetanus shot the next day and hoped that I had learned my lesson.  Unfortunately, it appears that I didn't.


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## fureverywhere

Our playground was a regular construction site. And surprisingly the major injuries didn't come from there at all. it was kids playing Evil Knievel on their bikes...wooden ramps and such. Today's parents??? No... kids will not kill themselves if given other options of fun.


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## NancyNGA

Nothing new here, but I just noticed the wagon load of hay in the background.  This was taken around 1910 in New York City. Just a reminder of the ramifications of horse drawn vehicles.  There must have been barns in the city, too---livery stables.  Like renting a high rise garage to keep your car now.  If I lived in NYC I wouldn't want a car at all, would you?


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## NancyNGA

Tug-o-War.  Only equipment needed:  a strong rope.


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## Carla

Ha-ha. Enjoyed that! How is it we are still around, being exposed to so much unsafe stuff? Rarely did anyone get hurt although there were stories which were shared around the playground so we knew what not to do. Also, there would sometimes be a teacher out there doing "playground" duty watching us. Sure, we had skun knees and such but macadam was unforgiving. I fell so often that I didn't have a chance to heal so the hole got deeper, leaving scars I can still see today.  No lawsuits back then. Kids were kids, we laughed and played. As long as there were bandaids and Bactine, the world kept spinning.


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## Pookie

Wooooo!! Those were fun!


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## NancyNGA

Wonder if the kids actually played on these things after the camera was shut down.


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## Pappy

Not in today's world......


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