Ventura Park & Ventura Park Elementary School are neighbors. The school has two playgrounds, and the city park has several sections as well.
While some schools in the David Douglas district have completely overhauled their playgrounds in the last decade, Ventura Park has not. Sure, a few of the structures are new, but the gymnast bars and monkey bars have been there for ages. The small, orangey structure with the curly-q slide has been there since about 1991. When I was in 6th grade, I went to that school one day a week for special classes. I used to love this little play structure. I loved the simplicity of it.
The city park has semi-new (as of 2007) equipment, but it also had a group of wooden climbing posts that looked like they'd been there a long time. At least, I thought they were climbing posts at first. I came across an internet forum of Ventura Park alumni discussing their old playground's features, and learned that the metal pipes once sprayed water! So these poles were water fountains! It makes sense, now that I think about it. In the photos, the metal spikes look too skinny/flimsy to climb, and since the lowest ones are situated pretty high, it's as if they wanted to discourage climbing (though I'm sure a few tried it.)
Location: SE 117th Ave., between Stark and Burnside
New equipment was added to one of the school's playgrounds in 2009. The photos below are from that year.
Update, 8.2.17: Ventura Park: Playground In Transition
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