Imagination Required: Imagination Playground at Burling Slip

The pipes and horns, doing nothing in particular.

I'd read all about this one before we went. Designed by the architect David Rockwell, Imagination Playground opened in 2010 with a big idea: instead of fixed equipment, give kids loose parts — giant foam blocks, crates, wagons — and let them build their own play. We showed up on a beautiful Sunday ready to build.

Ship-shaped decks and masts — but no blocks.

There were no blocks. No foam, no crates, no loose parts of any kind, nothing like the descriptions I'd read. The interesting-looking tubes and pipes scattered around turned out not to do anything at all. The only thing to play with was our imagination. So technically, the name is accurate.

A beautiful Sunday, and nobody else here.

The design isn't without charm. The whole playground is loosely boat-shaped and nautical, which suits the setting nicely, with the Seaport's old ships and the ferries right next door. There's a splash pad, though a pretty minimal one. And there's a bathroom right inside the playground, which deserves real credit, even if it was only moderately scuzzy.

The splash pad, such as it was.

The place was deserted the entire time we were there. As we were leaving, another family arrived — they'd taken the ferry over from Brooklyn specially — and they were every bit as disappointed as we were to find it empty and seemingly abandoned. I felt for them.

The in-playground bathroom (moderately scuzzy).

Verdict: best avoided, at least until someone brings the blocks back. If you're downtown, the Battery Playscape is a short walk away and a much better use of a Sunday.