Erie Canal Playground: The Knock-Off River Run

Nice trees, a streetlamp, and that track ride.

First, the names. The park is DeWitt Clinton Park, on the far West Side of Hell’s Kitchen, and the playground inside it has its own name: The Erie Canal Playground. The Erie Canal was Mayor/Governor DeWitt Clinton’s magnum opus. The mules (not horses) are a canal reference, since mules towed the barges. But apart from three mules and a painted canal route on the ground, there’s really nothing canal-y about this playground. Don’t expect it to be like River Run – it only has a painted stream, instead of a real one.

The eponymous canal.

The plaque: DeWitt Clinton Park, Erie Canal Playground, 1996.

The park even had a shot at naming the whole neighborhood: there was a push to rename Hell’s Kitchen “Clinton” after it, which never fully stuck, maybe because the park was so nasty back then. For decades it was notorious for being a late-night pickup spot for mixed-gendered people of the night, with drivers pulling in straight off the West Side Highway. It’s a very large park in a commercial part of town, so of course stuff went down here. These days it isn’t all that seedy anymore. People (with kids) are moving into the nice new condos overlooking the Hudson, and plenty of them use this as their neighborhood playground.

And now for the important part, the playground:

Surrounded by London plane trees on a rocky hill, with partial Hudson River and Midtown views, it’s actually kind of nice for a playground in a park with this kind of history.

The view from the top of the sus rock.

It was built in 1996, and it’s held up… mediocrely. There are a couple of sinkholes with barricades around them. The original paint is gone or faded, with very poorly done layers of paint slathered on top. The sad mules got the same treatment, and they look sticky. Put your kid on them at your own risk; they may not unstick.

Mules headed for the sinkhole.

The stickiest mule in the city.

The rubber floor pads are so slick that kids are always slipping and sliding. It makes for an interesting game of tag, and since they’re rubber, falling isn’t all that dangerous, but be warned.

The shuffle bridge, over the extra-slick rubber floor.

The rock outcrop is a lot of fun, like a mini Umpire Rock at Heckscher. It’s real rock, but it’s been skim-coated in concrete, probably to smooth out the rough or crumbly parts, so it looks just a little off. That’s why we call it the sus rock. No broken glass to be found, so it’s good fun.

The sus rock: real rock, skim-coated in concrete, with a little heavenly light shining down.

I love the metal track ride. I hadn’t seen one in years, and it was my favorite part of my playground as a kid. It might just date the place, but it’s a pretty unique feature, and I had fun on it. As kids we used to purposely crash into people with it. We called it the Crash ’n’ Burn. I was such a jerk...

The actual splash pad is outside the playground, near the bathrooms. There’s usually a lot of riffraff around it from the basketball court and playing fields, so it’s probably best avoided. The fields get very rowdy with adults; expect the kind of soccer game with cases of beer lined up along the fence.

The real splash pad, out by the ball fields.

There are public restrooms right outside the playground doors, but they’re some of the scuzziest I’ve ever seen.

I haven't been to prison yet, but it might be like this.

Half pretty, half trashy. Not a trash can, but used as one.

Verdict: worth a stop if you’re in the area, or you need a track ride, or you want to get stuck to a mule. We biked here on the Stumpjumper; it’s just across 12th Avenue from the Hudson River Greenway and right near the new Pier 97, which makes for an interesting old-vs-new comparison.