Ala Moana Park Playground Equipment in 1940

Ala Moana Park Playground Equipment 1940


As a playground designer, one can't help but see the genius in this equipment design. First of all, it was constructed 60-70 years ago and it's a pretty safe bet that a group of local welders put this equipment together. Even if you have never welded anything in your life you can look at this photo and appreciate the work involved. Although I couldn't find any written history on how this was made but I am pretty certain that they fabricated this on site. Can you imagine what they had to do to complete that swing set some 40 feet in the air?

Whoever designed it obviously took the basic elements found in a playground in that era and put his or her own unique signature on it. This was a one of kind playground back in the day and no doubt a landmark destination for children all over the island. I wish I could get a little better look at the climbers towards back. Just looking at shadow on the second one from the back tells me that this was an engineering marvel. I wonder if the designer had a rollercoaster in mind when they designed it?

After considering "what was" and contemplating the spirit and effort that was behind this playground's design and installation, I get a big knot in my throat. It makes me wonder when this spirit dropped off the face of our island and disappeared. This playground was built to give the children of Hawaii a unique place to play in one of the world's most beautiful parks. Today, we have adopted a "strip mall" approach to our public playgrounds in Hawaii. In our Honolulu district parks alone the Harris administration built over 100 identical playgrounds in the past 3 years! The explanation behind this thinking was the maintenance would be easier. When did the focus change from a wonderful unique place for our children play to easy maintenance?

I wish we could travel back in time and find all the people involved with constructing this playground in Ala Moana Park. I wonder how they would handle the news that the playgrounds of the future Honolulu Parks would be 100's clones of each other? I think they would ask the same question that I do every day. Who are we building these playgrounds for?