Seneca Park, Rochester NY

We checked out a playground today near the Seneca Park Zoo. It's part of the larger Seneca Park (2222 St. Paul Street, Rochester, NY) designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. There are at least two playgrounds in this park. We visited the one on the right as you drive in to the zoo, next to zoo parking.

The Good: What a great playground!

It has a play structure for 2- to 5-year-olds and a play structure for 5- to 12-year-olds, a swing set with two big kids swings and two toddler swings, two benches and oodles of shade.

We went at mid-day and almost every part was in the shade.

Everything is close together for easy supervising. Both structures have good railings so if a toddler happened to sneak over to the big one it wouldn't be terrible.

The smaller structure has long-ish slides, a play window and steering wheel, which kept even my older kid entertained.

Play structure for 5- to 12-year-olds.

Play structure for 2- to 5-year-olds.

Two toddler swings and two big-kid swings.

The Bad: It's hard to find anything wrong with this one. The bathroom is a single portable outhouse, but it's better than nothing.

Overall: This is the perfect place to stop before or after a visit to the zoo. Compared this to the playground inside the zoo, which gets so crowded by mid-day that I lose my kids right in front of me. Here were had a quiet lunch in the shade and the kids had a much better playground mostly to themselves.