Woburn Avenue Playground

Equipment by Little Tikes.

Surface: Rubber.

The Woburn Avenue Playground might be the most complete playground of its size in the whole city.

We dropped by mid-week in the summer and it was buzzing with activity. A local day camp was cooling off in the wading pool, a group of young mothers were chatting on picnic blankets in one corner while their babies cooed at each other, and a group of older kids were practising their volleyball skills on a small patch of grass over on the far side.

As busy as it was, it somehow didn’t feel crowded in the way that other, bigger parks can feel crowded. That same week, we had been to both playgrounds in High Park, and it was absolute mayhem. Here at the Woburn Avenue Playground, things were lively, but somehow under control.

Maybe it was the age of the kids. There’s a lot here that caters to younger ones: the small sandbox with a good stock of shared toys, the wading pool, the fairly easy-going equipment. Parents of toddlers with a tendency to scamper into traffic will like that this place is fully fenced, and it's even (I hope you're sitting down) got bathrooms! Add to that the near-complete shade cast by the plentiful trees and you’ve got a great place to spend a summer afternoon.

One interesting piece of equipment that I haven’t seen anywhere else was a solitary rock-like structure, four-sided with circular holes on each side, as if it was the top piece of an ancient clock tower that had been plunked down right there in the playground. I watched more than one toddler use it for a good game of peekaboo with their nanny.

As sleepy as the surrounding neighbourhood is, this park is a literal stone’s throw from Yonge Street, and a two-minute walk from the north exit of Lawrence Station. It’s also connected to the school yard of the adjacent Catholic School, which features another playground and a soccer turf, although we couldn’t take a closer look as there was construction happening on the day we were there.

North Toronto’s stock of playgrounds is already impressive, but this is another one worth visiting, especially if you’ve got younger kids.