Brooks: The return of the lost Loring Greenway playground

Residents along the Loring Greenway woke up last fall to find a vacant sandlot where the neighborhood playground used to be.

Minneapolis Public Works, which maintains the pedestrian walkway that threads from Nicollet Mall to Loring Park, had demolished the aging playground for safety reasons.

One problem: That wasn’t a city playground. Neighborhood residents had bought and paid for it decades earlier, and the neighborhood wanted its playground back.

The Loring Greenway is an urban oasis of fountains, flowers and neighbors relaxing around cafe tables. But it’s not a park, which is the department that usually deals with playgrounds. Public Works leans more toward streets and sewers.

Perhaps, city officials suggested, an empty sandlot would be just as much fun for children as swings and slides had been? Maybe the city could set up some beach toys and cornhole boards?

No, thank you, residents insisted at a series of well-attended public meetings over the past year. Take a playground, leave a playground.

Which is how Minneapolis Public Works ended up shopping for its first and probably last playground.

After two decades, the old playground “was kind of past its useful life [and] to the point where repairs no longer made sense, financially. And so we did take it down,” said Public Works Director Tim Sexton.

Minneapolis Public Works maintains the greenway, shovels the snow, picks up litter and keeps things safe and pleasant. The neighborhood usually appreciates their efforts so much they once threw a party for their favorite Public Works worker. Knocking down a playground with almost no warning was ... less popular.

“I will own that we could have done a better job of notifying folks that that was going to happen,” Sexton added. “But when we see a safety issue, we need to address it as soon as possible.”

The old playground attracted neighborhood children, visiting grandchildren and bands of roving toddlers on day trips from nearby day care centers.

“People were upset to see that go. It was very well-used,” said John Van Heel, president of the Loring Greenway Association. “Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”