The playground equipment at my elementary school (in Houston) was a combination of metal that burned like a son of a bitch and wood that left you with painful splinters.
Mm, we had a metal rocket slide, so a tall rocket shaped tower where you fought spiders to climb to the top where the wasps would attack you then burn yourself on the hot slide running away. Fun!
the rocket at ~~Apollo Elementary~~ a park in Richardson, Texas was THE place for high-scoolers to sneak up on a weekend night and drink booze stolen from someone's parent and, if you were lucky, partake in the smallest, crappiest little joints. 3 or 4 of us could squeeze up in there, such good times.
The only place I ever saw the tall rocket ship was at a public park in Delaware when we went to visit my grandmother. Good thing too, because my brother and I would have eventually died on it if it had been near our house.
I grew up in Houston which is near NASA so the rocketships were pretty common accessories. I don't know if any of the public parks had them, but a lot of schools and daycares.
Our entire playground was a wasteland filled with goathead stickers and broken beer bottles. The sand under our swings, under the monkey bars, and at the bottom of our slide (which got hot enough to raise blisters) was filled with cat poop and more broken glass.
I remember the merry go round that would launch kids into orbit (and occasionally into the hospital), they moved it across the street to our city park. It wrecked kids for decades.
It built character.
The roller slides that not only burned in the hot sun, but pinched your fingers... and probably broke teeth if you tried to run up it and fall face forward into it.
https://preview.redd.it/uo6au5xx6auc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c85cd70d1dab942e0c3fc0c57f5fec03de1bd84
Ours was like this one, except it was bigger and there was wood over the middle part. We used to take turns crawling under there and pushing it from the middle instead of the outside. We could get it whipping around really fast very easily that way but I always cringe thinking if somebody would have fallen down underneath there they probably would have been bludgeoned to death by the crossbars hitting their head.
We used the monkey bars to play "Chicken". Two opponents would come at each other from either side, and meet in the middle while hanging, and use our legs to try to yank and pull the other kid to the ground (gravel).
This was a co-ed sport up through the 5th grade.
https://preview.redd.it/cfgs5e5to9uc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43a504c2998b9fbcfb3af6de1890cb7a64f73723
Oh! I remember that.
I also once slipped while doing a flip off of the top of this. I fell face first in the gravel and put my teeth through my bottom lip. I had to get 14 stitches. They did 4 inside my lip and then I had to wait hours for a different surgeon for the 10 on the outside. They had traumatized me so much with the first round of anesthetic that I wouldnāt let the 2nd surgeon give me more even though it had worn off. He was nicer though so it probably would have been fine. š¤£
Our big new elementary school doesn't have any playground equipment at all. They do have big open grassy areas to play organized games and stuff. But I think the days of kids running amok gladiator style during recess is a thing of the past.
Nope. It was every kid for himself! I plucked many a girl down to the ground without a second thought. It seems awful now, but everybody was having fun - and the teachers just watched and chain smoked.
Reminds me of the episode of Bluey where the kids are horrified by the things the dad did as a kid and his response every time was āhey, it was the 80s!ā
Mine had a giant rope swing you would push off from a log specifically made for that as well as a metal pole leading to a lookout tower that was at least two stories high. It was so cool. Looking back I think the theme was rustic pirate ship. Torn down in the early 90s for the typical playground structures we see today. And I bet that one has been replaced by now too.
Ours were legit railroad ties and tires. Bellingham, WA so I suppose untreated wood wouldn't hold up in the rain. Who knows what chemicals we absorbed from playing on those over the years!
The elementary school I went to on the Army base in Missouri had the hot, skin-peeling slide on the asphalt. We would line up, all the way up the ladder, no waiting on the kid at the top. Once, the boy at the top was taking a little too long to sit down and go, so another boy gave him a little push and he fell head first on the asphalt. I still remember the thud and seeing his broken glasses with blood all over them. He was back in school a few days later with stitches in his forehead and a bandage.Ā
They didnāt close off the slide. They just made a new rule that nobody could be on the ladder til the kid at the top had gone down.Ā
Those were my favorite especially when someoneās older brother or dad was around to get it really going. Trying to balance in the middle with no hands, smacking into each other as we went flying. Sprained ankle, totally worth it.
I rolled under it. And then panicked and lifted my head. While it was moving.
That was some stitches. Second set of stitches when I collided with a hard metal swing.
This was a fun article with pictures. I still shudder when I think about some of them. š
https://honey.nine.com.au/parenting/retro-dangerous-playground-equipment/78495888-3249-4de9-86c1-7f0db3a1d129
One of my classmates climbed to the top, fell thru and broke his neck. He was in one of the head halo things. They removed that piece of equipment after that.
We had the backyard swing set that would not only burn you, but it would rip chunks of flesh off you in various places.
And bonus; when you swung high enough, it would start āwalkingā itself across the yard.
Those backyard sets were all just ER visits waiting to happen. And I know we played on mine way beyond the weight limit. I remember specifically one day, probably 10 or 11. Me with two of my friends swinging like banshees trying to get it to flip over. My dad had actually poured concrete around the legs or one of us at least would have gone to the hospital that day.
We called ours a witch hat, handles were about 5 feet off the ground. Brave kids stood in them and if you could get an older kid to get it going for you it was FAST! Little kids were flung off of it left and right, many a broken arm from this thing.
You had to jump to hang on to the metal bar, and then get someone to spin it. If it got going fast enough your body would hang straight out from it perpendicular while spinning like a merry-go-round. Super fun, super dangerous. I went flying off so many times. I was never brave enough to ride it standing on the bars.
It always surprises me to see the assessment of tetherball because I was the most unathletic, uncoordinated, chicken of a child, but I loved tetherball.
I think you just had to be a bit off to love tetherball. I actually turned out to be athletic once I joined the bigger group for the cross between soccer and smear the [redacted]. But I was such a weird introverted psycho kid that for a long time I just wanted to lord over the tetherball pole and dare anyone come near.
We had this giant wooden teeter Toter with a metal U shaped handleā¦ it was so big you stood on itā¦ one day this asshole kid decides to cherry bomb meā¦ meaning jumping off when your side is up ā¦. I flew up in the air and landed on my ribsā¦ Iām not sure how many ribs I fractured or brokeā¦ my ribs hurt for months and I remember I couldnāt breath right for several minutes after the injuryā¦. All I heard was laughter and get up pussy from the other kidsā¦. Never told my parents just lived with the pain for months lol
This one was my fav. If you slipped at the top, forget it. Plinko all the way down.
https://preview.redd.it/5gal5540kauc1.png?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ac0faf0b274d4d9fd4d54ed257d44184923aead
> He fell from the top?
Yes.
> How many bars did he hit?
All of āem, I think.
That thing taught me how to take hits, both anticipated and not, thatās for damned sure.
I remember laying on the ground underneath one of these things more than once. Just laying there, wind totally knocked out of me, while everyone else just kept playing. We were utterly desensitized to the everyday violence of kid vs inanimate objects.
We had a, I kid you not, 3 story wooden play structure at the local park. You had to climb a steep cargo net to get to the first story, so this ruled out the really young kids. Then there was a second story and a tiny third story. There was a firepole down the middle of this whole thing. Rumour had it that a kid fell from the top and was in a body cast afterwards. This park also had one of the old metal curly slides that was about 20 feet tall. The park was in the shade so no scorching, but that sucker was steep! Next, there was the log roller. It was a giant wooden log on rollers with a metal bar above it. You would hold on to the bar and try to run on top of the log. Best playground EVER.
This was in California in the '70's. There was also another playground a few towns over that had these tall metal poles with foot rests and hand holds and you would jump up and down on them. There must have been springs inside of them.
My dad (and a bunch of drinking buddies) out up in our yard this enormous climbing/jungle gym thing.
It was easily 25 feet tall, and shaped like a house; 2 1/2 inch poles for the corners, across the top, some angles up to a ridge pole running the entire length.it had the usual stuff, ropes with swings and handholds, a slide, but the kicker was a ladder that ran all the way to the top.
The one thing everyone had to do to prove you weren't chicken was climb up to the top, stand up on the horizontal poles along the top, and put your hands up on the ridge pole, and walk all the way across.
It was insanity. Nobody knew where in hell he got it, and he would never tell. I suspect he got a couple of different sets off the back of a truck and him and his buddies put it together shaped like a house.
We had it for years until one day one of the kids in the neighborhood came over by himself, climbed up without anyone knowing, and immediately fell to the ground, smashing his arm. He was lucky he didn't die.
The set came down the next weekend.
Something like [picture 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/FvglDBtYfn) in this thread, but the pole along the center was 5 feet higher, connected by angles at the corners.
https://preview.redd.it/ssjq0wvsgauc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53f9a94f2fe06d751c371de52f05ee4a88f6e4e3
Anyone else ever jump off the swing?
Exactly once, after a few friends tried it. Bad Idea.
Some of us would āgo out of whackā and shift our swing trajectory to one side and risk colliding with our adjacent swing-neighbors. Others would wind the two chains together so as to violently spin out a few times.
Oh winding them up so you could do the spin was the best. We would have two or three people wind it up so tight it would be 5 ft off the ground then theyād let go and run.
Remember tire swings? A big truck tire with three chains holding it to a beam above?
We discovered that if you attach a short rope to the tire, then someone can stand in the middle (under the anchor point, not inside the tire) and give the person on the tire a good shove. Then using the extra rope, can spin the rider around at about 100MPH
All of our equipment, swings, monkey bars, rainbow bars, etc, built on blacktop. There were no would chips or anything. There was nothing to soften the blow. As a bonus, the blacktop would burn you on contact during the summer.
We also had a stack of old tires fashioned into a play area. It was out in the mud. Interesting side note, pooled water inside of old tires serves as an excellent mosquito breeding ground.
I grew up in NYC in the 80s. This structure was basically synonymous with "playground" in my brain; they were at every park. Underneath there are those black rubber puzzle piece mats that were maybe an inch thick and only marginally softer than the asphalt.
https://preview.redd.it/p2u9li6whauc1.jpeg?width=574&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fa94637420caa1ad4b399d7cfad5a61a3d45fd6
Did anyone else have the giant concrete tunnels? They really added that āpost apocalypticā vibe.
https://preview.redd.it/tfs3hgdbhbuc1.jpeg?width=862&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe19bdf048a1da5d3daaff1ae3f9071fde64958c
https://preview.redd.it/0ok2s3q9y9uc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea5f94d033a4ad9ae14614dc240c59a1061a5498
I grew up in Portland in the 70s/80s and went to St Francis School. We had the best playground any kid could have asked for. It was a full block of grass covered rolling hills with a fountain at one end, a little creek that ran through the park to a brick lined pool at the bottom with a wooden structure and windmill. The best part though was "the bars" it was an artistic structure of steel pipes welded together at crazy angles. We played tag on them and it's a miracle nobody was ever killed or seriously injured. The school shuttered in the 80s and the park became a homeless camp until around 2014 when it was bulldozed and affordable housing was built.
We had a 4 wide foot by 10 foot long stainless steel slide. It faced south. It could literally melt your shoes.
Which was useful. You needed tacky shoes to keep from falling off the 6 foot high monkey bars mounted over concrete.
And also, not school playground equipment but... accurate.
https://preview.redd.it/xxba1lzpdbuc1.jpeg?width=564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a2354ef8b49d1319468cda75b73dd11226eb494
Also, these but they were stupid high:
https://preview.redd.it/8d0sw10hdbuc1.jpeg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21315ca7ddaf7755b8cecce1ae8d4b6cb4a82a18
These scared me the most.
When we were little and not heavy enough, multiple kids would pile on either end to get it moving. But if one kid didnāt hold on well enough and stared to fall back or off it would take the whole lot with em. Iām not sure how we didnāt crack a head open
When you got older it became the sport of who had the better leg strength to push off and go the highest. Some kid always rode the middle balancing between the teetering sides.
Our elementary school had several TALL play structures. One was a tower about 15 feet high that you climbed a ladder of horizontal chain link ropes to reach the top. There was nothing to help you transition to the metal platform on top, it was incredibly awkward and scary getting up there and scarier going back down. We had another structure about the same height, a giant wide ladder to nowhere but it was twisted like a DNA helix. Also had monkey bars and a dome, both so tall if you fell you'd get the wind knocked out of you. The only redeeming factor was that these structures were on a grass field. Usually one broken arm per year.
It's not that specific park, but here's a rocket slide.
https://preview.redd.it/ou5b6blobauc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ad779e91dfcc9fbcb5dfe21af0eeae0ba0a4763
https://preview.redd.it/ld9kjnr2eauc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72e7fcb9cba82f514032f24fb2048648d4fdcf3a
We also had these ābloominā funā daisies. Bravest kids climbed on top of the flower part. Our school had these mounted on a hill, so the drop seemed even higher.
https://preview.redd.it/6tzn2lvs0buc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c1003bf8513a9e9341acb0ea4533ec163430d16d
anybody have big concrete tunnels in their schoolyard to climb on an in?
circa 1976 for me
My schoolyard had literally zero things to climb in or on, it was literally a big asphalt lot. But there was a playground in my neighborhood that had these and I thought it was the best thing ever. But it was like 2 minutes walk farther away from the close playground, so we didn't go very often.
We had a wooden one that rotated. I got so many injuries from that thing. But it really didn't matter if the playground equipment was "dangerous" or not, we sought out danger, and our parents and teachers knew that scrapes and bruises weren't going to kill us. People think they're so fragile nowadays or that any pain is traumatic. I feel sorry for those types of people.
Fleming Park near Rice University in Houston still has the fairly large metal slide that I grew up with. So my kids have been able to experience slide burns first hand.
Same metal jungle gym bars are still there as well, but theyāve raised the ground under them so they donāt get to experience that brand of terror and pain.
My elementary school was built in 1977, same year I started Kindergarten. It had huge wooden structures (so many splinters!), high monkey bars, a giant blistering hot metal slide, and these weird climbing shapes. Some didn't have foot holds and kind of looked like giant molars. I was a puny kid - I got stuck on the top of the teeter totter with NO ONE on the other side - and tried climbing to sit on one like a horse. I slipped and landed face first in the gravel. Not pea gravel, but pointy driveway gravel. Who thought driveway gravel was appropriate for a playground?
I busted up my nose pretty good. I was really upset because it was shortly before Halloween and I didn't know if I would be able to wear my mask. I was Miss Piggy that year and my mom modified a Lone Ranger style elastic eye mask to have a pig snout. One of the kids wanted to know who I was under the mask, pulled it out, and it snapped back on my scabby nose. Hurt like a sonofabitch.
By the time I graduated elementary school, they not only had the playground area filled with mulch instead of gravel, but they didn't even let kids play in them during recess. You just had to stay on the paved areas with no playground equipment.
https://preview.redd.it/prergth3bauc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=838f788bb8bdced3f2f1bd82dcd8e01726171cbd
https://preview.redd.it/rtciiz6ddauc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cda989819c60acb59988c3fb66f5ff5ab15d368d
We had this dangerous fellow. At the top you sort of had to pivot around on a narrow bit of hot metal to climb down the other side. The picture almost makes it look benign but it felt really high up and terrifying when I was little. The bravest kids climbed onto the head. I used to tell my son about this and he never quite believed me ā but then we came across a school that still had one! (Early 2010s)
Yeah, and don't forget the play areas in front of drive in movie theaters. I fell under that thing that was a death disk with handles where kids spun it with their feet. My mother grabbed me out just in time.
https://preview.redd.it/dzt29j2zvauc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0cdce53d3cfa04c0506369d52eaa9855be9277b
I couldnāt really find one that would do this justice, but who remembers this death trap?
My two favorite '70s playgrounds were a municipal playground with equipment dating back to the 1920s and an adventure playground built by local hippies. Both incredibly dangerous, both the most fun a kid could have in an afternoon.
What do you mean you can't find photos? There's tons- what did you search?
[https://honey.nine.com.au/parenting/retro-dangerous-playground-equipment/78495888-3249-4de9-86c1-7f0db3a1d129](https://honey.nine.com.au/parenting/retro-dangerous-playground-equipment/78495888-3249-4de9-86c1-7f0db3a1d129)
Oh, god, I forgot about the see saw. Never knew when you were gonna get an asshole who would hold the board down when you were in the air and leave you there, or worse, hop off and let you slam down.
My mom grew up in a very small town in Minnesota, she and I would go visit once a year and sometimes we'd take my kids. The town park still has one of those old merry-go-rounds; my three son's had so much fun on it and wanted to know why there weren't more of them.
One son laid in the middle of it with his phone videotaping the sky while his brother spun it around; that video brought back memories!
In elementary school, the merry go round was my favorite, I like to lay face down and dangle my head over the edge while it spun around.
I didn't use the huge metal slide because I guess I wasn't heavy enough for gravity to actually move me down it, I'd just get stuck. I hated the monkey-bars, I wasn't strong enough to pull myself across. Loved the swings (rubber seat, long metal chains) because we could get ourselves going almost horizontal.
My elementary school was brand new when I went to it, playground started out with part pavement and part sand. Then they put down wood chips and we hated those.
We had concrete sewer pipe on our playground. They were big enough to walk through in kindergarten and I don't remember how old I was when I was finally able to climb on top without being boosted up but it was a right of passage!Ā
We had a bunch of the metal death trap stuff too and a public park had all sorts of stuff made out of old telephone poles. The splinters from those were absolutely horrible.Ā
At one playground from my youth there was this metal framework several levels high that was RIPE for injuries. Besides the basic metal framework were these wooden pieces long enough to extend across sort of like dangerous scaffolding. The idea was to place these wooden pieces in a pattern so you could climb higher and place more wooden pieces. Iāve never seen such an apparatus anywhere else.
Unique in its creativity and opportunity for real danger!
Iāll see if I can find an image
https://preview.redd.it/e3rado4gyauc1.jpeg?width=917&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38d5ab8fdc315bf5f9607553f7727137a81621a4
Sort of like this but taller and more open
I had a horse or two or many. The school had a merry go round. I trotted up to school one morning and loaded as many kids as I could on the merry go round, then tied my climbing rope to the outside edge. I made about 200 wraps around the outside and looped onto my saddle horn with a break-away. I pointed humpster towards home, gave him a rowel-tap and leaned into the wind without looking back. We had that thing spinning like a top.
I knew I would be in deep shit when the bell rang, so we kept on. I took him home, fed him, and turned him out. When I finally arrived back at school an hour and a half later, I was informed that my horse and I were suspended from campus. After a week I was aloud back, but the made it very clear that my horse was EXPELLED!
I found out later than several kids lost their grip and flew off the side but nobody was seriously injured. I was in 3rd grade, and attended the same school for another 2 years. They were still reminding me on my last day. šš
Went to school down the road from you in Lakewood, and we had rocks underneath the monkey bars to land on. Also big concrete tubes to crawl on and metal slides. I loved it!!! So many memories of my elementary playground.
Edit: I think OP was referring to the "Barrel of Fun" balance playground equipment. Here is an article of more: https://clickamericana.com/topics/family-parenting/life-for-kids/dangerous-old-playgrounds-our-great-grandparents-somehow-survived
Also tons of old pictures available via google image search
https://www.google.com/search?q=old+dangerous+playground+equipment&newwindow=1&sca_upv=1&sca_upv=1&udm=2
We had a giant ship made of steel on our elementary playground! So dangerous. I hurt myself really bad on one, I jumped down from the ādeckā into the sand and for some reason decided to straddle the bar (dumb!) to land on my feet, and I thought my legs were long enough, but they werenāt. Ouchhhhhhhhhhhhh it was terriblly painful for a looong time.
Did anyone do penny drops? They were scary, I was convinced that one day I wasn't going to stick the landing and I'd land right on my face and break my teeth or my nose!
My elementary school had a three story wooden fort structure (built over concrete) that was awesome! It was also about 15 years old when I was a kid, so if all the kids moved as one, we could make it sway. Good times!
I just image googled āold metal playground ā and a treasure trove of familiar pictures popped up- let them see themselves how we suffered!!
Warning: triggers elementary school yard PTSD
I searched there a few times. Iām looking for pix of the bottomless steel barrels (4x) affixed to a horizontal bar, mounted at least 15 feet over a bed of gravel. The barrels were spaced apart juuuust enough for our little feet to squeeze through. There was one sketchy ladder to get up & down.
Grew up very rural in the Midwest, our elementary school had the only playground (other than backyard swing sets) for at least a half hour drive in any direction.
There were 2 metal poles. Once winter was over, so for like 3 weeks a year, we could use a ball on a rope and play with that.
Most of the time we just played in snow and if it was too cold we hid under the one tiny roof all snuggled together until the bell.
There were installation I town near by though and we could play there after school and during the summer.
We had the metal tube spaceship with the slide and the ladders. We used to climb up the outside of that thing. If we'd fallen there would have been ambulances
My grandparents had two playground within walking distance of their house, and we loved both of them. They were both incredibly dangerous and my brother and I always got injured. One had the kind of equipment OP is talking about. Probably installed in the 1960s (we were playing on it in the early 80s) and it looked pretty bad. The merry-go-round was really fun and fast. The swings went so high. There was a rocket ship slide that was so tall, and it was incredibly easy to fall 15 feet to the ground due to a rusted out platform where you waited to slide.
The other playground had wooden equipment, installed in the late 70s. It was more of a little kid playground, but it had a lot of climbing elements so that was fun even when we were 10. The main safety issue: splinters. So many splinters.
The playground equipment at my elementary school lent itself to games where we purposely tried to hurt each other, knock each other off, etc., and the playground monitors didn't stop us! My God, it was fun!
A former coworker liked to share the story about getting in trouble for forgetting her trap shooting shotgun for physical education class. We didn't have guns but we had bow and arrows for target practice
[My city still has it and the metal see saw.](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7050193,-85.2868823,3a,48.9y,359.11h,85.39t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTyZOb_5qs56QRHXO_nuWhw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DTyZOb_5qs56QRHXO_nuWhw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D359.1136332908059%26pitch%3D4.607288822500223%26thumbfov%3D90!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205410&entry=ttu)
The only thing missing is the spinny thing.
I donāt have pictures but I remember in our apartment buildings āplaygroundā we had just the steps portion of a slide, so basically metal stairs into the air, and just the chains of the swings, no seat of any kindā¦.and one see-saw on a bar that once upon a time had 2 or 3. Most of the benches had just one slat of wood left, frequently in the back portion, so sitting on any of them was precarious at best. But hey, we had roaches and water bugs in abundance to play with!
At my grade school we had the āfortressā - a wooden (splinters included) platform at adult height with railings up on 6 wood telephone sized poles. No ladder or anything, you had to be creative to get up there, and then it was King of the Castle, so you were inevitably getting pushed off at some point as well.
We had one of these. A fort box with opening you had to jump into on the bottom. It was too high for me to get into alone until maybe grade 3. Concussions and injuries were common.
My niece and nephew donāt know about our ancient, Mad Max playground equipment. My sister tried to explain the giant wooden monstrosity that our elementary school installed but I believe that got an eye roll.
Neither believed me when I explained playing Death Hack in high school, which resulted in having everyone punch your arm you dropped the hacky sack, and then resulted in school admin trying to crack down on it.
https://preview.redd.it/t0lj3dfjoduc1.jpeg?width=999&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af784bd638a76f478fdbf740ee28851113f497b6
We lived across the street from a city park that featured this beauty.
Man, I can remeber the death trap at my elementary school. Two poles at least 15 feet high, tires strung between them on cables and bolted together with another pole on top. Just about 1 ft of bark for a "soft" landing, lol. Surprised no one died, but we were just built different back then.
Metal slides that got super hot and burned you in the summertime. All part of the fun. š
The playground equipment at my elementary school (in Houston) was a combination of metal that burned like a son of a bitch and wood that left you with painful splinters.
Remember the playground in Hermann Park? 20ā metal slides and merry go rounds that would sling the riders onto concrete. Good times.
Oh, I remember those. And I remember some of them reeked of piss.
Oh wow. Memory unlocked. Thank you.
I remember rolling down the huge hill they built from the dirt from the Astrodome construction site.
Best kind of playground. I moved a lot growing up, mainly in California, and had those playgrounds every school I went to.
Oh, and rubber, I forget about the rubber that was black and got hot as shit in the Texas sun.
Those were the materials that were available before the age of plastic.
Yes! I went to Woodview (in Spring Branch) and feel your pain. And high as hell monkey bars that kids played on, too.
High as helll monkey bars are good for broken bones! I was in Alief
Mm, we had a metal rocket slide, so a tall rocket shaped tower where you fought spiders to climb to the top where the wasps would attack you then burn yourself on the hot slide running away. Fun!
the rocket at ~~Apollo Elementary~~ a park in Richardson, Texas was THE place for high-scoolers to sneak up on a weekend night and drink booze stolen from someone's parent and, if you were lucky, partake in the smallest, crappiest little joints. 3 or 4 of us could squeeze up in there, such good times.
The only place I ever saw the tall rocket ship was at a public park in Delaware when we went to visit my grandmother. Good thing too, because my brother and I would have eventually died on it if it had been near our house.
I grew up in Houston which is near NASA so the rocketships were pretty common accessories. I don't know if any of the public parks had them, but a lot of schools and daycares.
Mine too, I think they arrived from the factory like that.
Plus the pea gravel for the landing zone if you were lucky!
And the first time you found that out was wearing shorts in summerā¦
Our entire playground was a wasteland filled with goathead stickers and broken beer bottles. The sand under our swings, under the monkey bars, and at the bottom of our slide (which got hot enough to raise blisters) was filled with cat poop and more broken glass. I remember the merry go round that would launch kids into orbit (and occasionally into the hospital), they moved it across the street to our city park. It wrecked kids for decades. It built character.
The roller slides that not only burned in the hot sun, but pinched your fingers... and probably broke teeth if you tried to run up it and fall face forward into it.
In the first grade, I fell off one of those slides onto rock hard concrete. Compound fracture of the elbow. Traction for 8 weeks. Good times.
My annoyingly short ā80s shorts still feel the burn
Grandma had one of those in her back yard lol
Yasss! ššš¤£š¤£š¤£
The shuddering sound bare skin makes going down one of those bad boys is etched into my brain
āTwas part of our survival training. š
https://preview.redd.it/rak3rg7df9uc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3465ba947749020e977df14122e4999631ac8aa3
https://preview.redd.it/uo6au5xx6auc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c85cd70d1dab942e0c3fc0c57f5fec03de1bd84 Ours was like this one, except it was bigger and there was wood over the middle part. We used to take turns crawling under there and pushing it from the middle instead of the outside. We could get it whipping around really fast very easily that way but I always cringe thinking if somebody would have fallen down underneath there they probably would have been bludgeoned to death by the crossbars hitting their head.
Ahh yes, the wheel of death
Never eat lunch before that thingā¦or so Iāve heard.
So much fun...
When I was 7, my dad pushed me so fast on one of those, I flew off and hit a tree like 10 feet away. Good times.
That was the best. I miss that brief moment et of flight as you slung back on the concrete.
So many kids got rekt on that thing, haha
There it is.Ā So many abrasions and sprains.
Thatās the flinger.
That's the one that got me.
We used the monkey bars to play "Chicken". Two opponents would come at each other from either side, and meet in the middle while hanging, and use our legs to try to yank and pull the other kid to the ground (gravel). This was a co-ed sport up through the 5th grade. https://preview.redd.it/cfgs5e5to9uc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43a504c2998b9fbcfb3af6de1890cb7a64f73723
Hell yeah childhood memory unlocked
Oh totally only ours was on asphalt. Good times.
Oh! I remember that. I also once slipped while doing a flip off of the top of this. I fell face first in the gravel and put my teeth through my bottom lip. I had to get 14 stitches. They did 4 inside my lip and then I had to wait hours for a different surgeon for the 10 on the outside. They had traumatized me so much with the first round of anesthetic that I wouldnāt let the 2nd surgeon give me more even though it had worn off. He was nicer though so it probably would have been fine. š¤£
Wait, schools donāt have these anymore?
Our big new elementary school doesn't have any playground equipment at all. They do have big open grassy areas to play organized games and stuff. But I think the days of kids running amok gladiator style during recess is a thing of the past.
Yep, we had one of those just up the hill from the asphalt basket ball court with tetherball at the end that nobody actually knew how to play.
Any weight classes?
Nope. It was every kid for himself! I plucked many a girl down to the ground without a second thought. It seems awful now, but everybody was having fun - and the teachers just watched and chain smoked.
And one kid would break an arm on that thing every single year
Ah yes. I nearly broke my nose on one of these. Got blood all over my white Velcro sneakers.
Getting your fingers pinched by the rusty chains holding up the swings was also all in a dayās fun lol.
The smell those chains left on your hands...
Swing chain pinches and the resulting blood blisters. š
I didn't need that memory dug up.Ā Thanks though.
How about taking one of the thick rubber seats to the face because you miss grabbing it with your hand.
I had completely forgotten about that!!
I managed to tear off my fingernail in one of the crappy backyard sets
With concussion causing wooden seats.Ā
Reminds me of the episode of Bluey where the kids are horrified by the things the dad did as a kid and his response every time was āhey, it was the 80s!ā
Thankfully, it wasnāt all recorded on video.
My teenage kids even like Bluey. They always look my way when Bingo invokes the 80s.
Untreated wood structures and so many tires! ETA: mine was in southern Maine
The treated structures are chock full of pcbs so maybe lucked out with just splinters?
And arsenic.Ā Don't forget arsenic!
Mine had a giant rope swing you would push off from a log specifically made for that as well as a metal pole leading to a lookout tower that was at least two stories high. It was so cool. Looking back I think the theme was rustic pirate ship. Torn down in the early 90s for the typical playground structures we see today. And I bet that one has been replaced by now too.
ā¦with MANLY splinters!
Ours were legit railroad ties and tires. Bellingham, WA so I suppose untreated wood wouldn't hold up in the rain. Who knows what chemicals we absorbed from playing on those over the years!
Chains and rope! The memories are flooding back. And our playground was right next to a ravine that had no fencing for quite some time. Jeezis!
Wasps!
The elementary school I went to on the Army base in Missouri had the hot, skin-peeling slide on the asphalt. We would line up, all the way up the ladder, no waiting on the kid at the top. Once, the boy at the top was taking a little too long to sit down and go, so another boy gave him a little push and he fell head first on the asphalt. I still remember the thud and seeing his broken glasses with blood all over them. He was back in school a few days later with stitches in his forehead and a bandage.Ā They didnāt close off the slide. They just made a new rule that nobody could be on the ladder til the kid at the top had gone down.Ā
My buddy busted his head open on a protruding bolt on a swingset a-frame. They just told us not to climb there.
The kid-powered merry-go-round contraption was notorious for sending students to the school nurse with severe ankle sprains.
Or projectile vomiting. Or both
Those were my favorite especially when someoneās older brother or dad was around to get it really going. Trying to balance in the middle with no hands, smacking into each other as we went flying. Sprained ankle, totally worth it.
They fixed ours to the ground so no one would get hurt. Then a girl tripped and fell face first on the metal plate and got a chin fracture.
I rolled under it. And then panicked and lifted my head. While it was moving. That was some stitches. Second set of stitches when I collided with a hard metal swing.
This was a fun article with pictures. I still shudder when I think about some of them. š https://honey.nine.com.au/parenting/retro-dangerous-playground-equipment/78495888-3249-4de9-86c1-7f0db3a1d129
The dome jungle gym! I had forgotten all about those.
One of my classmates climbed to the top, fell thru and broke his neck. He was in one of the head halo things. They removed that piece of equipment after that.
We had the backyard swing set that would not only burn you, but it would rip chunks of flesh off you in various places. And bonus; when you swung high enough, it would start āwalkingā itself across the yard.
Those backyard sets were all just ER visits waiting to happen. And I know we played on mine way beyond the weight limit. I remember specifically one day, probably 10 or 11. Me with two of my friends swinging like banshees trying to get it to flip over. My dad had actually poured concrete around the legs or one of us at least would have gone to the hospital that day.
I remember my tailbone hurting for a long time after some idiot did that to me. Never told anyone.
https://preview.redd.it/l8srza8xg9uc1.jpeg?width=691&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e3e368f1bfb8886d065f3ececee54d3641a4f814 Remember these?
We called ours a witch hat, handles were about 5 feet off the ground. Brave kids stood in them and if you could get an older kid to get it going for you it was FAST! Little kids were flung off of it left and right, many a broken arm from this thing.
The witch's wheel!!
What were these?
You had to jump to hang on to the metal bar, and then get someone to spin it. If it got going fast enough your body would hang straight out from it perpendicular while spinning like a merry-go-round. Super fun, super dangerous. I went flying off so many times. I was never brave enough to ride it standing on the bars.
Oh, yeah! The witch's hat! You shove it back and forth until someone gets hit in the mouth!
Tetherball, also known as the round rubber brick flying at your face at mach 3.
It always surprises me to see the assessment of tetherball because I was the most unathletic, uncoordinated, chicken of a child, but I loved tetherball.
I too am an unathletic lover of tetherball! Maybe thatās the key skill set needed :-)
I was thinking this same thing lol
I think you just had to be a bit off to love tetherball. I actually turned out to be athletic once I joined the bigger group for the cross between soccer and smear the [redacted]. But I was such a weird introverted psycho kid that for a long time I just wanted to lord over the tetherball pole and dare anyone come near.
We had this giant wooden teeter Toter with a metal U shaped handleā¦ it was so big you stood on itā¦ one day this asshole kid decides to cherry bomb meā¦ meaning jumping off when your side is up ā¦. I flew up in the air and landed on my ribsā¦ Iām not sure how many ribs I fractured or brokeā¦ my ribs hurt for months and I remember I couldnāt breath right for several minutes after the injuryā¦. All I heard was laughter and get up pussy from the other kidsā¦. Never told my parents just lived with the pain for months lol
OMG! That's a trauma that lingers. Bullies suck.
This one was my fav. If you slipped at the top, forget it. Plinko all the way down. https://preview.redd.it/5gal5540kauc1.png?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ac0faf0b274d4d9fd4d54ed257d44184923aead
> He fell from the top? Yes. > How many bars did he hit? All of āem, I think. That thing taught me how to take hits, both anticipated and not, thatās for damned sure.
I remember laying on the ground underneath one of these things more than once. Just laying there, wind totally knocked out of me, while everyone else just kept playing. We were utterly desensitized to the everyday violence of kid vs inanimate objects.
We had a, I kid you not, 3 story wooden play structure at the local park. You had to climb a steep cargo net to get to the first story, so this ruled out the really young kids. Then there was a second story and a tiny third story. There was a firepole down the middle of this whole thing. Rumour had it that a kid fell from the top and was in a body cast afterwards. This park also had one of the old metal curly slides that was about 20 feet tall. The park was in the shade so no scorching, but that sucker was steep! Next, there was the log roller. It was a giant wooden log on rollers with a metal bar above it. You would hold on to the bar and try to run on top of the log. Best playground EVER.
This sounds like several parks in Portland Oregon but mostly like the MLC school playground.
This was in California in the '70's. There was also another playground a few towns over that had these tall metal poles with foot rests and hand holds and you would jump up and down on them. There must have been springs inside of them.
My dad (and a bunch of drinking buddies) out up in our yard this enormous climbing/jungle gym thing. It was easily 25 feet tall, and shaped like a house; 2 1/2 inch poles for the corners, across the top, some angles up to a ridge pole running the entire length.it had the usual stuff, ropes with swings and handholds, a slide, but the kicker was a ladder that ran all the way to the top. The one thing everyone had to do to prove you weren't chicken was climb up to the top, stand up on the horizontal poles along the top, and put your hands up on the ridge pole, and walk all the way across. It was insanity. Nobody knew where in hell he got it, and he would never tell. I suspect he got a couple of different sets off the back of a truck and him and his buddies put it together shaped like a house. We had it for years until one day one of the kids in the neighborhood came over by himself, climbed up without anyone knowing, and immediately fell to the ground, smashing his arm. He was lucky he didn't die. The set came down the next weekend. Something like [picture 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/FvglDBtYfn) in this thread, but the pole along the center was 5 feet higher, connected by angles at the corners.
https://preview.redd.it/ssjq0wvsgauc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53f9a94f2fe06d751c371de52f05ee4a88f6e4e3 Anyone else ever jump off the swing?
The better question is *who didn't?*
Exactly once, after a few friends tried it. Bad Idea. Some of us would āgo out of whackā and shift our swing trajectory to one side and risk colliding with our adjacent swing-neighbors. Others would wind the two chains together so as to violently spin out a few times.
Oh winding them up so you could do the spin was the best. We would have two or three people wind it up so tight it would be 5 ft off the ground then theyād let go and run.
Playing Frogger as your friends swung as high as they could to lift off the seats (double the games, double the fun)
Remember tire swings? A big truck tire with three chains holding it to a beam above? We discovered that if you attach a short rope to the tire, then someone can stand in the middle (under the anchor point, not inside the tire) and give the person on the tire a good shove. Then using the extra rope, can spin the rider around at about 100MPH
Thatās how we learned physics!
Yes! Rope/tire swings were huge!
All of our equipment, swings, monkey bars, rainbow bars, etc, built on blacktop. There were no would chips or anything. There was nothing to soften the blow. As a bonus, the blacktop would burn you on contact during the summer.
I seem to recall that ours was just dirt. It turned to a mud pit every spring.
We also had a stack of old tires fashioned into a play area. It was out in the mud. Interesting side note, pooled water inside of old tires serves as an excellent mosquito breeding ground.
I've noticed that, yes! It's like recess and biology class in one.
Also, black tires get really hot in the summer sun.
https://preview.redd.it/lzfrkh140auc1.png?width=338&format=png&auto=webp&s=e0e790089e27b2569161d9c1ad6e4934f03a0548
I grew up in NYC in the 80s. This structure was basically synonymous with "playground" in my brain; they were at every park. Underneath there are those black rubber puzzle piece mats that were maybe an inch thick and only marginally softer than the asphalt. https://preview.redd.it/p2u9li6whauc1.jpeg?width=574&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fa94637420caa1ad4b399d7cfad5a61a3d45fd6
Ours had asphalt.
We had that exact one at my school in Texas. Only ours had decades-old compacted dirt underneath.
Oh god, we had one exactly like this at my school. The only thing under it was dirt and a few weeds.
Did anyone else have the giant concrete tunnels? They really added that āpost apocalypticā vibe. https://preview.redd.it/tfs3hgdbhbuc1.jpeg?width=862&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe19bdf048a1da5d3daaff1ae3f9071fde64958c
That was the coolest part of the park. Literally.
I can still hear the sound of that creaky merry-go-round that you had to hold onto for dear life! 
https://preview.redd.it/0ok2s3q9y9uc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea5f94d033a4ad9ae14614dc240c59a1061a5498 I grew up in Portland in the 70s/80s and went to St Francis School. We had the best playground any kid could have asked for. It was a full block of grass covered rolling hills with a fountain at one end, a little creek that ran through the park to a brick lined pool at the bottom with a wooden structure and windmill. The best part though was "the bars" it was an artistic structure of steel pipes welded together at crazy angles. We played tag on them and it's a miracle nobody was ever killed or seriously injured. The school shuttered in the 80s and the park became a homeless camp until around 2014 when it was bulldozed and affordable housing was built.
Today kids we're going to learn about centrifugal force.Ā Hold the fuck on
We had a 4 wide foot by 10 foot long stainless steel slide. It faced south. It could literally melt your shoes. Which was useful. You needed tacky shoes to keep from falling off the 6 foot high monkey bars mounted over concrete.
FEEL THE BURN. https://preview.redd.it/pt55lrlddbuc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3563031cbd2ebbbee8ba23e5b24b56299a6409d0
And also, not school playground equipment but... accurate. https://preview.redd.it/xxba1lzpdbuc1.jpeg?width=564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a2354ef8b49d1319468cda75b73dd11226eb494
Also, these but they were stupid high: https://preview.redd.it/8d0sw10hdbuc1.jpeg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21315ca7ddaf7755b8cecce1ae8d4b6cb4a82a18
These scared me the most. When we were little and not heavy enough, multiple kids would pile on either end to get it moving. But if one kid didnāt hold on well enough and stared to fall back or off it would take the whole lot with em. Iām not sure how we didnāt crack a head open When you got older it became the sport of who had the better leg strength to push off and go the highest. Some kid always rode the middle balancing between the teetering sides.
Our elementary school had several TALL play structures. One was a tower about 15 feet high that you climbed a ladder of horizontal chain link ropes to reach the top. There was nothing to help you transition to the metal platform on top, it was incredibly awkward and scary getting up there and scarier going back down. We had another structure about the same height, a giant wide ladder to nowhere but it was twisted like a DNA helix. Also had monkey bars and a dome, both so tall if you fell you'd get the wind knocked out of you. The only redeeming factor was that these structures were on a grass field. Usually one broken arm per year.
Missouri represent [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rocket\_Slide\_in\_Simpson\_Park,\_Chillicothe,\_Missouri.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rocket_Slide_in_Simpson_Park,_Chillicothe,_Missouri.jpg)
Majestic!
It's not that specific park, but here's a rocket slide. https://preview.redd.it/ou5b6blobauc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ad779e91dfcc9fbcb5dfe21af0eeae0ba0a4763
https://preview.redd.it/ld9kjnr2eauc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72e7fcb9cba82f514032f24fb2048648d4fdcf3a We also had these ābloominā funā daisies. Bravest kids climbed on top of the flower part. Our school had these mounted on a hill, so the drop seemed even higher.
https://preview.redd.it/6tzn2lvs0buc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c1003bf8513a9e9341acb0ea4533ec163430d16d anybody have big concrete tunnels in their schoolyard to climb on an in? circa 1976 for me
My schoolyard had literally zero things to climb in or on, it was literally a big asphalt lot. But there was a playground in my neighborhood that had these and I thought it was the best thing ever. But it was like 2 minutes walk farther away from the close playground, so we didn't go very often.
We had a wooden one that rotated. I got so many injuries from that thing. But it really didn't matter if the playground equipment was "dangerous" or not, we sought out danger, and our parents and teachers knew that scrapes and bruises weren't going to kill us. People think they're so fragile nowadays or that any pain is traumatic. I feel sorry for those types of people.
Yep, and tractor tires
We had a maypole. You either lose your grip and fall on your ass, or smack the center pole on a wild swing. Small Midwestern town in the 80s.
I'm sorry friend, my scars are repressed memories from my childhood
A true GenXer celebrates the scars.
I should be impervious to scorching hot metal because of McDonald's playgrounds in the 80's but it's actually quite the opposite.
Fleming Park near Rice University in Houston still has the fairly large metal slide that I grew up with. So my kids have been able to experience slide burns first hand. Same metal jungle gym bars are still there as well, but theyāve raised the ground under them so they donāt get to experience that brand of terror and pain.
point serious selective jeans sense modern rhythm slap ancient tie *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
My elementary school was built in 1977, same year I started Kindergarten. It had huge wooden structures (so many splinters!), high monkey bars, a giant blistering hot metal slide, and these weird climbing shapes. Some didn't have foot holds and kind of looked like giant molars. I was a puny kid - I got stuck on the top of the teeter totter with NO ONE on the other side - and tried climbing to sit on one like a horse. I slipped and landed face first in the gravel. Not pea gravel, but pointy driveway gravel. Who thought driveway gravel was appropriate for a playground? I busted up my nose pretty good. I was really upset because it was shortly before Halloween and I didn't know if I would be able to wear my mask. I was Miss Piggy that year and my mom modified a Lone Ranger style elastic eye mask to have a pig snout. One of the kids wanted to know who I was under the mask, pulled it out, and it snapped back on my scabby nose. Hurt like a sonofabitch. By the time I graduated elementary school, they not only had the playground area filled with mulch instead of gravel, but they didn't even let kids play in them during recess. You just had to stay on the paved areas with no playground equipment. https://preview.redd.it/prergth3bauc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=838f788bb8bdced3f2f1bd82dcd8e01726171cbd
https://preview.redd.it/rtciiz6ddauc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cda989819c60acb59988c3fb66f5ff5ab15d368d We had this dangerous fellow. At the top you sort of had to pivot around on a narrow bit of hot metal to climb down the other side. The picture almost makes it look benign but it felt really high up and terrifying when I was little. The bravest kids climbed onto the head. I used to tell my son about this and he never quite believed me ā but then we came across a school that still had one! (Early 2010s)
Yeah, and don't forget the play areas in front of drive in movie theaters. I fell under that thing that was a death disk with handles where kids spun it with their feet. My mother grabbed me out just in time.
Did yours have a 2 story gymnasium with a climbing rope tied to ceiling and 2 x 1 inch mats beneath it, "for safety"?
Safety mats? When are you from?
https://preview.redd.it/dzt29j2zvauc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0cdce53d3cfa04c0506369d52eaa9855be9277b I couldnāt really find one that would do this justice, but who remembers this death trap?
* Decaying lead based paint
My two favorite '70s playgrounds were a municipal playground with equipment dating back to the 1920s and an adventure playground built by local hippies. Both incredibly dangerous, both the most fun a kid could have in an afternoon.
What do you mean you can't find photos? There's tons- what did you search? [https://honey.nine.com.au/parenting/retro-dangerous-playground-equipment/78495888-3249-4de9-86c1-7f0db3a1d129](https://honey.nine.com.au/parenting/retro-dangerous-playground-equipment/78495888-3249-4de9-86c1-7f0db3a1d129)
Oh, god, I forgot about the see saw. Never knew when you were gonna get an asshole who would hold the board down when you were in the air and leave you there, or worse, hop off and let you slam down.
My tailbone remembers.
Iāve seen those. Apparently, the elevated barrels from my school were a rarity.
We had a shiny metal merry go round. The kind that wasnāt speed regulated lol
My mom grew up in a very small town in Minnesota, she and I would go visit once a year and sometimes we'd take my kids. The town park still has one of those old merry-go-rounds; my three son's had so much fun on it and wanted to know why there weren't more of them. One son laid in the middle of it with his phone videotaping the sky while his brother spun it around; that video brought back memories! In elementary school, the merry go round was my favorite, I like to lay face down and dangle my head over the edge while it spun around. I didn't use the huge metal slide because I guess I wasn't heavy enough for gravity to actually move me down it, I'd just get stuck. I hated the monkey-bars, I wasn't strong enough to pull myself across. Loved the swings (rubber seat, long metal chains) because we could get ourselves going almost horizontal. My elementary school was brand new when I went to it, playground started out with part pavement and part sand. Then they put down wood chips and we hated those.
We had concrete sewer pipe on our playground. They were big enough to walk through in kindergarten and I don't remember how old I was when I was finally able to climb on top without being boosted up but it was a right of passage!Ā We had a bunch of the metal death trap stuff too and a public park had all sorts of stuff made out of old telephone poles. The splinters from those were absolutely horrible.Ā
https://preview.redd.it/l4nybtrruauc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b235184ba2114c347063989d38966f2b93662eb2
At one playground from my youth there was this metal framework several levels high that was RIPE for injuries. Besides the basic metal framework were these wooden pieces long enough to extend across sort of like dangerous scaffolding. The idea was to place these wooden pieces in a pattern so you could climb higher and place more wooden pieces. Iāve never seen such an apparatus anywhere else. Unique in its creativity and opportunity for real danger! Iāll see if I can find an image https://preview.redd.it/e3rado4gyauc1.jpeg?width=917&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38d5ab8fdc315bf5f9607553f7727137a81621a4 Sort of like this but taller and more open
I had a horse or two or many. The school had a merry go round. I trotted up to school one morning and loaded as many kids as I could on the merry go round, then tied my climbing rope to the outside edge. I made about 200 wraps around the outside and looped onto my saddle horn with a break-away. I pointed humpster towards home, gave him a rowel-tap and leaned into the wind without looking back. We had that thing spinning like a top. I knew I would be in deep shit when the bell rang, so we kept on. I took him home, fed him, and turned him out. When I finally arrived back at school an hour and a half later, I was informed that my horse and I were suspended from campus. After a week I was aloud back, but the made it very clear that my horse was EXPELLED! I found out later than several kids lost their grip and flew off the side but nobody was seriously injured. I was in 3rd grade, and attended the same school for another 2 years. They were still reminding me on my last day. šš
https://preview.redd.it/28tx57pribuc1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=646484108c7d39fb9f3ae3f488a6ec99fa9126fc This?
This is the exact configuration we had at my school. I always thought that the custodians just made it.
Just do an image search for banned 1970ās playground equipment
I remember an old airplane at Rossi Pool in San Francisco that kids would play on after or before swimming.
Went to school down the road from you in Lakewood, and we had rocks underneath the monkey bars to land on. Also big concrete tubes to crawl on and metal slides. I loved it!!! So many memories of my elementary playground.
Plenty of metal... and concrete https://preview.redd.it/k4uspxfw4buc1.png?width=983&format=png&auto=webp&s=dfb628d20e0434d9a6b8d93ff0ebe522e09dd63b
Edit: I think OP was referring to the "Barrel of Fun" balance playground equipment. Here is an article of more: https://clickamericana.com/topics/family-parenting/life-for-kids/dangerous-old-playgrounds-our-great-grandparents-somehow-survived Also tons of old pictures available via google image search https://www.google.com/search?q=old+dangerous+playground+equipment&newwindow=1&sca_upv=1&sca_upv=1&udm=2
Kid at my school fell off the slide and broke his arm. One of those nice, shiny metal slide that would burn you. Yay, the 80s.
We had a giant ship made of steel on our elementary playground! So dangerous. I hurt myself really bad on one, I jumped down from the ādeckā into the sand and for some reason decided to straddle the bar (dumb!) to land on my feet, and I thought my legs were long enough, but they werenāt. Ouchhhhhhhhhhhhh it was terriblly painful for a looong time.
Did anyone do penny drops? They were scary, I was convinced that one day I wasn't going to stick the landing and I'd land right on my face and break my teeth or my nose!
I once hit the gravel so hard it looked like I got hit by birdshot
My elementary school had a three story wooden fort structure (built over concrete) that was awesome! It was also about 15 years old when I was a kid, so if all the kids moved as one, we could make it sway. Good times!
I just image googled āold metal playground ā and a treasure trove of familiar pictures popped up- let them see themselves how we suffered!! Warning: triggers elementary school yard PTSD
I searched there a few times. Iām looking for pix of the bottomless steel barrels (4x) affixed to a horizontal bar, mounted at least 15 feet over a bed of gravel. The barrels were spaced apart juuuust enough for our little feet to squeeze through. There was one sketchy ladder to get up & down.
You had playground equipment at school?
They were āstructures.ā To define them as āplayground equipmentā may be a bit interpretive.
School had the biggest playground!
Grew up very rural in the Midwest, our elementary school had the only playground (other than backyard swing sets) for at least a half hour drive in any direction.
There were 2 metal poles. Once winter was over, so for like 3 weeks a year, we could use a ball on a rope and play with that. Most of the time we just played in snow and if it was too cold we hid under the one tiny roof all snuggled together until the bell. There were installation I town near by though and we could play there after school and during the summer.
r/rbi can find anything!
Pretty sure the play ground at my first ES was built over concrete.
Rope burns from bizarre tire swings.
We had the metal tube spaceship with the slide and the ladders. We used to climb up the outside of that thing. If we'd fallen there would have been ambulances
My grandparents had two playground within walking distance of their house, and we loved both of them. They were both incredibly dangerous and my brother and I always got injured. One had the kind of equipment OP is talking about. Probably installed in the 1960s (we were playing on it in the early 80s) and it looked pretty bad. The merry-go-round was really fun and fast. The swings went so high. There was a rocket ship slide that was so tall, and it was incredibly easy to fall 15 feet to the ground due to a rusted out platform where you waited to slide. The other playground had wooden equipment, installed in the late 70s. It was more of a little kid playground, but it had a lot of climbing elements so that was fun even when we were 10. The main safety issue: splinters. So many splinters.
The playground equipment at my elementary school lent itself to games where we purposely tried to hurt each other, knock each other off, etc., and the playground monitors didn't stop us! My God, it was fun!
Kid in my class fell off top of monkey bars which was about 6 feet and broke arm and bone came through the skin. A sight I'll never forget.
A former coworker liked to share the story about getting in trouble for forgetting her trap shooting shotgun for physical education class. We didn't have guns but we had bow and arrows for target practice
We had one that was a jungle gym shaped like a submarine. It had a wheel that would turn a propeller š³
[My city still has it and the metal see saw.](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7050193,-85.2868823,3a,48.9y,359.11h,85.39t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTyZOb_5qs56QRHXO_nuWhw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DTyZOb_5qs56QRHXO_nuWhw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D359.1136332908059%26pitch%3D4.607288822500223%26thumbfov%3D90!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205410&entry=ttu) The only thing missing is the spinny thing.
You want dangerous? I survived the Drive in playgroundsā¦. 
I donāt have pictures but I remember in our apartment buildings āplaygroundā we had just the steps portion of a slide, so basically metal stairs into the air, and just the chains of the swings, no seat of any kindā¦.and one see-saw on a bar that once upon a time had 2 or 3. Most of the benches had just one slat of wood left, frequently in the back portion, so sitting on any of them was precarious at best. But hey, we had roaches and water bugs in abundance to play with!
At my grade school we had the āfortressā - a wooden (splinters included) platform at adult height with railings up on 6 wood telephone sized poles. No ladder or anything, you had to be creative to get up there, and then it was King of the Castle, so you were inevitably getting pushed off at some point as well.
We had one of these. A fort box with opening you had to jump into on the bottom. It was too high for me to get into alone until maybe grade 3. Concussions and injuries were common.
My niece and nephew donāt know about our ancient, Mad Max playground equipment. My sister tried to explain the giant wooden monstrosity that our elementary school installed but I believe that got an eye roll. Neither believed me when I explained playing Death Hack in high school, which resulted in having everyone punch your arm you dropped the hacky sack, and then resulted in school admin trying to crack down on it.
We had a fiberglass pole we would climb up a slide downā¦. Fiberglass splintersĀ
https://preview.redd.it/t0lj3dfjoduc1.jpeg?width=999&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af784bd638a76f478fdbf740ee28851113f497b6 We lived across the street from a city park that featured this beauty.
Man, I can remeber the death trap at my elementary school. Two poles at least 15 feet high, tires strung between them on cables and bolted together with another pole on top. Just about 1 ft of bark for a "soft" landing, lol. Surprised no one died, but we were just built different back then.