Tuesday, December 13, 2016

I Miss the Old Days

The Downward Slide of the Seesaw: What they did not know was that they were in one of the last places in New York City where they could seesaw. Once ubiquitous in the city’s hundreds of public playgrounds, as they were around the country, the seesaws adults remember have largely vanished from the city and much of the nation because of safety concerns and changing tastes.

5 comments:

Don Coffin said...

When I was maybe 6 years old, my best friend and I uses to see-saw standing up. Which led to the more-than-occasional fall, but no apparent damage...if you don't count the dreams...

Unknown said...

We'd stand at the low end and run up to the high end, having a fine time when it tilted downward. And there was no supervision at all at the playground. We'd walk there from our homes.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Damn skippy! Until I was 9 we lived in an apartment house in Queens and there was an attached park with swings and slides and seesaws. We did the same as Bill, run up one slide and push down the other. Of course, my brother was known to wait until you were up in the air and jump off the down side, but that's just him.

I miss the old days too.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Children could slam each other by dismounting suddenly.

That was his plan.

Cap'n Bob said...

If you were the heavier kid you could stick someone in the air for as long as you wanted.

I noticed there were no seesaws in the playgrounds when I took my girls to them 20 years ago, so I built one in the backyard. It was crude but it worked.