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Hyde Park Avenue playground without actual playground to get playground

Roslindale Wants to Play reports that Pagel Playground, which currently consists of two fields, will be getting an unusual play structure, one of only three of its kind in the entire country.

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Assuming they plan to use that utterly unused bit of grass by the underpass.

If this is taking the place of one of the heavily used soccer pitches, I will let loose with a loud boo (or whistle if I were a true soccer fan.)

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This will be placed in the lawn, most likely in the section closest the soccer facilities. One nice thing about this arrangement is that it should give kids something fun to do during their siblings' soccer games. My younger daughter always prefers it when there is a nice playground in the parks where my older daughter has her softball games.

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These structures are really cool, and climbing on these sorts of unstable surfaces is really great for kids with coordination and attention issues. But could the description on the website be any more pretentious!?

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n/t

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Despite its name, Pagel Playground has no play structures and is in an area of east Roslindale that is underserved by play opportunities.

and

We are particularly excited about this new addition to Roslindale’s play scene because it achieves several of the approaches we’ve recommended in our vision statement: it’s as much public art sculpture as play structure, it’s innovative in its rigging of hammock-like straps that have an unpredictable element that will challenge children in ways more traditional structures do not and it comes about as a result of thoughtful leveraging of a public-private partnership.

People who bemoan mushy, jargon-filled writing point to examples like these. Awful, just awful.

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How would you rewrite it?

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Please stop calling anything east of the railroad "East Roslindale." No one who grew up here ever called it that, nor do they now. It's a newbie tag that some people just don't appreciate. It also flags you as a newbie.

For the record, the locals called that part of Roslindale "White City" or "Southbourne."

The "White City name came from a set of apartment buildings, long since replaced by the Woodbourne Apartments that were built by a Mr. White. They were considered state of the art in their day and those clusters of apartments coupled with the stores nearby got the area tagged as "White City." Others called it Southbourne or Woodbourne after the local streets. In fact some just referred to it as "Pagel" after the playground.

Other areas were known as Wachusset, Neponset, Catherine, or Bourne neighborhoods. No one... NOOOO ONNNEE has ever called it East Roslindale.

Please assimilate.

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The only reason I know that the area was know as White City was that back in the 1980s the Parkway Transcript used to put it on its masthead. I would imagine that few would know that the area was know as that. I've always called it the Bourne area, and once again, I was reading the Transcript back in the 80s.

But yeah, no one calls it East Roslindale, but then again some call it Jamaica Plain. Also, I always thought the clusters of apartments that gave White City its name were those ones on Southbourne Rd that are still up. I swear I read something about them a decade ago.

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When I was proofreading I should have realized that would make some people unhappy. For the record, I think it's as much a grammatical error as an attempt at naming that part of the neighborhood - note that "east" isn't capitalized. It should probably be "eastern" to be grammatically correct, though.

The good news is that the play structure is coming to Roslindale despite our deficiencies as writers and regardless of whether we end up being flagged as newbies.

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When Pagel Playground was created and dedicated back in the early 1960s in did in fact have play equipment such as swings, see-saws, and merry-go-rounds, like another play area at the corner of Blakemore and Hyde park Ave (now housing).

In its heyday it was enjoyed not only by the children of the general neighborhood surrounding Hyde Park Ave, but also children from the Archdale Housing. In those days a foot tunnel connected Brookway Rd and the play area. The tunnel is still there but filled in for decades now.

Over time and neglect by a city strapped for funds to keep it up, Pagel Playground fell into decay.

The soccer fields are a rather recent incarnation even though they have been there a decent 20 years.

The play area was dedicated by the local American Legion post (long gone) with a ceremony that included a short parade by the vets, local kids bands, and speeches from area politicians.

History written says this was at one time an MDC (now DCR) play area but I'd question that. I'm pretty sure it was a city facility, but I'll leave it to someone else to search archives.

So, to be clear... it did have play equipment when it originally opened but that was well before some of the proponents for more play areas, now parents, were even born.

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