Go play with your food.
Toronto’s newest playground St. James Park, off of Jarvis and Adelaide, is a playful take on a food market. The park’s facelift is filled with your typical playground features – slides, climbing structures, swings – but created with nature and natural materials inspired by fun food elements.
Kids can crawl over over-sized fruit crates, balance on asparagus sprouts and carrot ‘beams,’ and run around on rubber ‘ice cream’ mounds. The merry-go-round (yes, a merry-go-round!) is a spin on watermelon. There is also a waterplay feature and lots of new seating.
This is proof that playing downtown doesn’t have to mean dragging your kids to concrete and grit. The City of Toronto park makeover was led by Ontario-based Earthscape with PMA Landscape Architects, whose playgrounds are designed and fabricated in Elmira, ON. They are the firm behind the awesome Grange Park behind the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The Park will be undergoing more improvements scheduled to begin this summer, including features like more plaza seating and a new open-air park pavilion.
Go and play. And eat your veggies.
TRIP TIPS:
Getting here: The park is bordered by Adelaide to the north, Jarvis on the east, King to the south and St. James Cathedral on the west. The playground is on the northeast side. Paid parking lots in the hood and if you’re commuting take the King Streetcar.
Low-down: So much to kickstart your kids imaginations and get them moving. There is lots of shade and places to sit.
In the hood: Walking distance to St. Lawrence Market, Young People’s Theatre and Museum of Illusions.
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