This brand new playground is one of the best in the area, and shows that the city is capable of building decent playgrounds if they put in the effort.
Even though this is a recently renovated playground, there are plenty of mature trees dotting the space, and the landscaping around the edges have done a great job of making this playground quiet and separated from the busy city streets. There were lovely flower gardens and they were well maintained.
It's a big play space too. While I suspect on a weekend this might fill up, on a weekday evening it was fairly quiet. A few families were having dinner on the picnic tables nestled between the ball courts and the playground.
The toddler section has some unique art-objects-as-climbing-structures. The tot-sized slide wasn't all that interesting, but that hardly mattered because the other side of the playground had a lot more going on.
While this playground was still overly reliant on rope climbing, the larger equipment did have ramps and interesting focal points. The tallest of the slides has an open stairway / ladder thats pretty difficult for smaller children to master. This of course means our toddler wants to be lifted to the top of the slide rather than climbing up himself.
Although it wasn't filled, there is also a small pool attached to this playground in addition to the spray water features. At the back of the playground is an artificial turf field and tiny running track.
This was a really beautiful playground, sizeable and pleasant to spend time in.
The playground is named for the Olympian Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals for the United States at the 1936 Berlin games. The playground was renovated under Bill de Blasio's park renovation initiative.
