New Veterans Park playscape is already a hit with kids

It didn’t take long for kids to find the new playscape in the rear of Veterans Park. The playscape was installed last week with the help of dozens of GM volunteers. This is just one of more improvements coming to the park.

By Charles Sercombe
It’s a clichéd thing to say, but in this case, it can’t be helped:
“Build it, and they will come.”
Yes, it’s that famous quote from the movie “Field of Dreams.”
That quote not only applies to a fictional baseball field, but also to the very real and new playscape at Veterans Park (which is, coincidentally, located next to two other, very real, baseball fields).
Let’s back up.
There was truly plenty of sweat equity, as the phrase has it, put into the building of Hamtramck’s newest playscape.
Dozens of volunteers, mostly from General Motors, volunteered a whole lot of sweat last week – one of summer’s hottest and most humid weeks — into putting together hundreds of pieces of playscape equipment.
As in, about $600,000 worth of equipment, plus land preparation – all courtesy of a generous grant.
The final result was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday afternoon, even as some more final touches were being added while the speech making was still taking place.
The project was actually, finally, completed on Monday. The playscape is located in the rear portion of Veterans Park.
It covers 9,000-square-feet, and was designed with a lot of input by Hamtramck school kids. The non-profit company Kaboom helped with designing and coordinating the building of the playscape.
One of the features in the playscape is a kid-safe (obviously) zip line. There are also a whole bunch of whimsically designed pieces for kids to climb on.
By Tuesday evening, dozens of kids were scrambling all over the area, each vying for their next turn on this and that.
The big favorite, without a doubt, was the zip line.
“This is the best” said one grinning 6-year-old girl.
There was an initial question whether the relatively remote location of the playscape might be a turn-off. Well, to those naysayers (which includes a certain local reporter), it must be said:“Ha!”
This play area bookends with another, albeit smaller, in the front of Veterans Park, and it will also tie in to a number of coming improvements to the park.
The key piece of the park is the restored historic baseball stadium that once was home to the local Negro League-era baseball team, the Detroit Stars.
All together, the many recent improvements to the park now total a few million dollars’ worth.
This park has come a long way since it fell into shabby disrepair in the 1970s and was subsequently slated for demolition. A local grassroots organization, Preserve Our Parks, put a stop to that plan.
That was back in the 1990s when a seed was also planted in the minds of many to look for ways to revitalize the city’s largest green space.
Next up: the restoration of restrooms connected to the baseball stadium.
Posted August 4, 2023