City Hall Plaza Revamp | Government Center

Jesus Christ, does no one on this board have kids? There are slides just like that in parks in all over the city. Stop making up a litigation boogyman.

to answer your question: yes. to reply to the bolded portion of the quote above -- please direct me to a city-owned park with a slide of that length and at that steep of a grade that is open/functional, other than this new installation.
 
to answer your question: yes. to reply to the bolded portion of the quote above -- please direct me to a city-owned park with a slide of that length and at that steep of a grade that is open/functional, other than this new installation.

Fallon Field in Rozzie:
 

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Fallon Field in Rozzie:

*For god's sake, man, don't let City Councilor Erin Murphy discover that death trap, lest she nearly disembowel herself, in her clumsiness, like she almost did on the new City Hall Plaza playground slide!*

(spoken a la Shatner in Star Trek)


(In all seriousness, quoting directly from her recollection of her *ordeal*: "I got whipped around in the tunnel and came out backwards and upside down."

Somewhere, James Sokolove--is he still metro Boston's reigning amublance chaser, er, personal-injury attorney?--is licking his chops.)
 
...Somewhere, James Sokolove--is he still metro Boston's reigning amublance chaser, er, personal-injury attorney?--is licking his chops.)

Sokolove had one hell of a run, but I think he's been supplanted these days by Jason "Better Phone Stone" Stone Injury Lawyers (whose commercials run about 50x per hour during local broadcasts of the Celtics games).

Brought my kid here again on Thanksgiving morning before the extended fam came over and he still loves this thing. But, yeah, there were some awkward high velocity ejections of others (I'm talking to you, 40-somethings, please just leave it for the kiddos).

Btw, both times we were here there were city staffers monitoring the playground, stepping in to tell kids not to do dumb things (e.g., don't go down head first). Not kidding: there was a white city vehicle patrol-car sorta thing sitting outside the playground fence directly pointed at the slide, with a couple instances of someone stepping out of the car to maintain order on the slide. I genuinely wonder if this is indeed going to be a monitored playground as normal operation, or whether this is just still part of initial validation/quality control.

In any case, I do hope this is safe enough to keep. It's been a lot of fun for a lot of kids already in its short life.
 
*For god's sake, man, don't let City Councilor Erin Murphy discover that death trap, lest she nearly disembowel herself, in her clumsiness, like she almost did on the new City Hall Plaza playground slide!*

(spoken a la Shatner in Star Trek)


(In all seriousness, quoting directly from her recollection of her *ordeal*: "I got whipped around in the tunnel and came out backwards and upside down."

Somewhere, James Sokolove--is he still metro Boston's reigning amublance chaser, er, personal-injury attorney?--is licking his chops.)

It clearly says it's for children. I'm waiting for an opportunity to go down, but it's probably not designed for adult sized people
 
that looks awesome! thanks for the heads-up.
It is completely awesome. My kids were beyond the playground phase when they re-did Fallon Field, but we all enjoyed checking that slide out when it opened. Super fast and fun, and continues to be very well utilized.
 
I'm guessing the immediate ground where the slide lets out is rubberized. But I doubt this slide will continue the way it is. Someone will get hurt and the lawyers will swarm.
 
I'm guessing the immediate ground where the slide lets out is rubberized. But I doubt this slide will continue the way it is. Someone will get hurt and the lawyers will swarm.

Jesus Christ. Do you actually know anything about liability laws, or are you just basing this on vibes?

I truly beg of the posters in this thread to please stop baseless fear-mongering over a goddamn slide. We can discuss other things besides ZOMG, LAWYERS!
 
I only know, or am assuming, that when the public become injured on a government funded activity ride, there could be a lawsuit. Is there a warning sign, a "slide at your own risk" one? I do love the new design of the plaza. It looks like fun. However, isn't a government public plaza designed for gathering, for protesting, for rallying the masses to engage in some kind of political tumultuous activity?
 
I believe that you’ll see Somerville parents devising GLX trips to places like Government Center (City Hall plaza) It makes a grand outing for all kinds of ages.

My tweens and their cousins enjoyed a walk from Haymarket to Faniuel Hall to State Street to City Hall plaza just for the lights, people watching and hot chocolate ( with only a tiny bit of “are these steps or seats?”as they ambled up to the Gov Cen headhouse)

We didn’t “do” the park, but it was definitely a parallel to the kind of easy transit trips we did to the Frog Pond or Cambridge Common or the Esplanade when they were little—it is just a novel thing to do
 
Isn't this redesign of the plaza--a softening up of or feeling better with--a result of a fringe group that wanted to raze city hall because they single mindedly decided that Brutalism was an unfit architectural style for today's civic buildings? And with some of today's political gatherings--or reaching back to when busing was a big fight in this town--children are the last group of humans that you would want nearby. Just, be careful.
 
Someone will get hurt and the lawyers will swarm

The Esplanade playground would like a word. I've seen more kids than I can count (including my own) fall off that climbing structure. I've also seen the ropes on one of the swings entangle a child's arm and break it with an audible snap. If we can get through all that without lawsuits closing the playground (though they did use a different rope arrangement for the aforementioned swing), the kids of Boston and this new playground should survive. Having taken a kid almost all the way to teendom in the city and meeting other parents doing the same, we're all just glad there are playgrounds that actually entertain kids older than toddlers. Also, when you're dealing with the T, traffic, the colorful denizens of the city, and the general flow of city life, a "fast slide" is wayyyyyy down the list of things that are going to get you riled up as a parent.
 
“Kiddie Hall Playground” is such an awesome name!

It gets even better. Sasaki put up some temporary explanatory signs talking about what's in the playground and where their design ideas came from with the heading "Kinder Brutalism."

(As in the German word "kinder," meaning "children." See also: kindergarten.)
 
Isn't this redesign of the plaza--a softening up of or feeling better with--a result of a fringe group that wanted to raze city hall because they single mindedly decided that Brutalism was an unfit architectural style for today's civic buildings? And with some of today's political gatherings--or reaching back to when busing was a big fight in this town--children are the last group of humans that you would want nearby. Just, be careful.

What? If by fringe group you can the majority of the City of Boston that has marked city hall as one of the most hated buildings in the city, sure. I'd say the fringe group are the people that like City Hall and Brutalism in general.
 

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