By Helena Maffei
When I was a kid, my favorite part of a playground was the swings. A visit wasn’t complete until I got, at least, a short turn on the swings, and any playground without “big-kid” swings became off-limits once I outgrew the “baby swings.” The swings were the only reason I went to the playground at all. There was something about pushing myself off the ground with my toes, then pumping my legs while leaning back, and pulling at the chains to gain momentum. I felt strong and free, being able to lift myself through nothing but my own power.
It took a while to get there. I remember years of needing to be pushed by my dad while other kids my age propelled themselves, uselessly bending my knees and waving my ankles in an attempt to mimic the movements that got them so effortlessly off the ground. But I eventually got the hang of it — and once I did, it became like second nature, a rhythm I could easily fall into with a simple push off the ground.
The rhythm of swinging is why I keep coming back to it as an adult. The last few years of my life have been filled with classwork, job applications, and writing projects. I have to muster up a lot of energy to complete these tasks — energy that tends to worm its way into my legs and feet and stay there even when I’m not using those parts of my body. After several hours at a desk, there is no better way to burn off the excess energy than by walking through Central Park to the Pinetum Playground and taking a good, old-fashioned swing.
Located mid park between 84th and 86th streets, fenceless, the Pinetum Playground, is less of a playground than two sets of swings — one for babies and one normal-sized — and a pair of chin-up bars, located at the Arthur Ross Pinetum, an arboretum in Central Park containing 17 varieties of pine trees. I was first introduced to the Pinetum in early adolescence, while I was being homeschooled; there was a group of moms, all homeschooling girls my age, that my mom and I would meet up with on a weekly basis for “homeschool recess.”
There wasn’t much to do at the Pinetum compared to other playgrounds — and that’s what makes it so appealing to me as an adult. Other playgrounds are always packed with children, a good third of them either on or waiting for a swing. Playgrounds are considered spaces for children, after all; if there are five kids and one adult in line for the next available swing and the adult takes it…imagine what people would think!
There’s not so much a sense of the Pinetum as a children’s space, and that makes it a good place for adults who want to swing, just like in the old times. That’s another reason swinging is still so enjoyable to me — it’s one of the few things from my childhood that hasn’t changed since I’ve grown up. It still has that same, simple rhythm that I’m never going to lose.
I too am an adult that enjoys swinging at the pinetum, the one place in the area childless adults are allowed to. Unfortunately, a couple weeks ago, they just replaced the swing seats with smaller/tighter swings that say they are only rated for children :-/. I’m not sure who can be contacted about going back to more adult friendly seats.
Bring back the old swing seats. Swinging is not only for children. (I’m 74)
Let’s hear it for swings and for kids’ agency! I remember flying into the air when the rusted hook on our swing broke through. And I remember kids’s disputes at the swingsets in the old days, when adults weren’t around, and we had to resolve the disputes ourselves. Which we sort of did, sort of.
Let’s hear it for swings!
I thought for a second that Plato’s Retreat was back!
When I was a child, my father hung a swing off one of our tall, sturdy wooden prewar apartment door frames. Several of my friends had swings in their apartments, too. That’s probably strictly forbidden now, and with good reason, but it was one of my favorite things growing up.
The playgrounds weren’t so safe then (my mother was robbed while I was on the swings in one upper 80s playground, and she told the men, “Take what you want, just leave my daughter alone”), so maybe that was why my father put a swing in at home. I remember being very sad when I got too big and heavy to use it.
If there were adult-sized swings in the park, I would be very tempted to use them, but I think enclosed playgrounds should be reserved for children.
“How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue?”
When I first moved to the UWS I discovered the swings in the Pinetum and it became a regular part of my life. Not only is swinging so much fun! it’s also great exercise. Go, enjoy!
The swings in the Pinetum is one of my favorite places in the Park!
Not the “swinging” fondly recalled from the 1960’s.