Fun with hammers and nails in a 1970s Toronto playground
Adventure Playground drew kids to a desolate part of downtown Toronto in 1980
It was called the "Adventure Playground." But for the kids drawn to its opportunities for building their own environment in 1980, it was serious business.
"[If] you look around most Canadian cities, you find very few vacant lots anymore, where kids can learn about wood and nails without a lot of hassle," said the CBC's Hana Gartner, reporting for the daytime current affairs program Take 30 in late 1980.
But the site at the foot of Toronto's Bathurst Street, in the city's Harbourfront neighbourhood, was different. Here, children were encouraged to pick up hammers, nails, rope and old tires.
As the camera showed a set of elevated boardwalks, Gartner explained the playground had originally been a two-month pilot project six years earlier that had since become a year-round attraction.
Manual skills for kids
"The adventure playgrounds have been operating since 1943 in Amsterdam," said Mike Moffat, who was a board member of the organization that operated the playground.
He said the concept had been adopted in Britain where about 100 such playgrounds had operated at one time.
The playground had achieved its goals, he added in a voice-over. Viewers could see a towering wooden structure apparently built by children and a row of hammers awaiting young would-be carpenters.
"What we're doing right is providing ... a higher quality learning environment, building environment," he said. "It's helping the kids get off the streets, and it's teaching them some manual skills. It's training them something."
'Tools and other junk'
Gartner said the playground concept was deceptively simple and adaptable.
"Find a space, fence it off, fill it with old wood, nails, tools and other junk ... [and] turn the kids loose," she said, as an elevated view of the overall location showed the industrial remains of a stretch of the waterfront.
Injuries under these circumstances were rare, said Moffat, and there were "safety rules" in place.
"In the six years that this playground had operated, there has not been one serious accident," he said, acknowledging that there was "a lot of paranoia" and that there had been incidents where kids stepped on nails.
According to the Globe and Mail, the adventure playground was the first in North America. In 1982, it reported that a fire swept through a shelter on the site meant to protect kids from the wind and rain.
