New York's Big Backyard
By HELENE STAPINSKI
The New York Times
June 6, 2008

GOING to our local playground in Brooklyn can be painful. When friends are there, it's great. But it's hard to make small talk with people I barely know about high-tech strollers, whose kid is taking French lessons (mine are not), the pros and cons of gifted-and-talented programs -- the usual nightmare urban-mommy conversation.

So, come late spring, my children and I hit the pavement, and the subway, in search of the anonymity for which New York is famous. Since I've spent most of my adult life here, I know many neighborhoods intimately and use the playgrounds as an excuse to give my children an extended tour of the town they call home. Some of the playgrounds we've stumbled upon by accident, and some I know from past lives. [More]

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