With newer equipment and a more playful choice of equipment, this playground is one of my favorites – except for the road noise from bridge onramp.
Fake rocks adorn the park. These are pretty good for climbing and the balance beams look like logs. The mushroom chairs around the kids picnic tables gives the whole thing the air of Disney world theme park.
One thing that detracts from this playground though is the noise. The BQE, Williamsburg Bridge, JMZ, and bus depot are all close by making it loud. The Shabbat siren is also prominent. Anyway, all this is to say its far from a relaxing afternoon because its just so loud.
There are other problems here too. Like the fact that the water feature, while just off to the side, has no gate. It’s easy for little ones to end up wet, even when you're yelling "stay out of the water!"
This was a great example though of how some parents are bad at the playground. We watched an altercation between the two sets of parents when some older, charter school children started pushing around a nonverbal autistic toddler. The parents of the older children didn't seem to care very much about not pushing around a toddler, and were all too eager to dismiss the other mother's concerns. The parents started yelling, and we took this as an opportunity to leave before the police showed up and killed someone.
Overall though this park is usually fine except for the noise. I like coming here in the fall and winter when the water is turned off and there is a much lower chance of encountering some overly entitled waterfront high rise parents. You know the types.
Named for Fiorello La Guardia, the 99th mayor and first Italian Mayor of New York City. La Guardia empowered Robert Moses, so its a fitting tribute to have a playground name for him surrounded by highways.