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Adults work so kids can play
By adamg on Sat, 09/24/2016 - 11:49am
Parents and neighbors descended on the Sumner School in Roslindale today to help set up a temporary play set to replace the one burned in an arson fire this past May, until a more permanent playground can be built.
So many people showed up that there wasn't enough work for them all - so they set to scraping and cleaning the school fence along Basile Street so it could be repainted.
Once a permanent playground is completed, the temporary set will be used at other playgrounds being updated in the city.
An adult and two teens have been charged with setting the fire
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Comments
looks like fun
for the adults, as well as for the kids eventually
shame about the reason but i suppose you dont have a community come together to rebuild something that DIDNT get destroyed somehow.
Progress delayed?
I seem to remember a lot of press on this loss of the play area which stated that the city was going to work hard to assure that the replacement play area would be built in time for school to start.
I have to wonder what happened to the schedule for that?
Lots of local funds (big bucks) were raised to get things started as well.
All positive for the kids but is this temporary replacement set of play items due to the fact that the City cannot deliver? Funding? Budget? Need to sub-contract to design and build? Seems this and similar posts on this grand effort by parents is saying the City cannot deliver on that promise and it may be next year before anything actually gets built.
Inside story?
A little more info
I'm not quite an insider but I'm following this pretty closely and can give a rough overview of what happened.
The city basically offered to replace the structure with another one of the same design. They could do this quickly and relatively inexpensively because there was no design process and the structure would not be overly expensive. That's certainly not a bad offer, but the parents at the school, with the help of Councilors McCarthy and Wu, decided to explore some other options, as well. The opportunity to install these PlayCubes as a temporary measure came about thanks to those efforts and because the manufacturer was already working to bring some of their play structures to Boston (it is the same manufacturer that produces the PlayForm 7 structure that is coming to Pagel Playground; they have also installed PlayCubes in Chinatown). Given this opportunity for a short term installation, the parents chose to take a little extra time to try to come up with a better long term solution for the schoolyard rather than just replacing the outdated structure they had lost to the fire.