A review of Erwin Krickhahn Park for
@smably ; photos are mine unless otherwise indicated and taken on July 7th, 2023:
As this is a lesser known park to most, lets start by siting it: (Google Maps)
So this is a comparatively small space, rectangular in shape, abutting the GO Barrie Corridor's new guideway on the west, located just north of Bloor between Lansdowne and Dundas W.
The City certainly makes no grand claims about the space, which gets only this description on the City's website:
At 1.3 acres this is a small'ish space, far from the City's smallest, but about 2/3 the size of Love Park.
All that said, lets have a closer look. We'll start with an aerial view to get the lay of the land:
Here we can see the entire space, with the sand area at the south end being home to the playground and drinking fountain, and the balance, largely, open grass with some trees.
I approached this park from its south-west corner:
Ok, nice big trees, but not much else to see here. Remember some of the basic park design ideas I've discussed. An entrance should be welcoming, I should see seating somewhere nearby, there should signage/park name, and I should have a view/sightline that invites me in....
Not so much here..........seating zero, signage zero, no real entry way landscaping, and can't see anything of interest beyond either......
Hmmm
A quick glance up the street does reveal the park's sign.........in this case, being a small space, I think I'm ok w/only one park sign, one at each point of entry might be excessive.
Lets get a bit closer to that entrance:
So you can sorta see the junior playground equipment as you step up the park, but the sight line is partially obstructed. Its not the end of the world, and the play equipment isn't much to look at, but I don't consider that ideal.
Lets go in:
Here's the junior play equipment:
Not much there, and what is really needs some colour (paint). This is one of those seemingly obvious things that the City misses too often, a simply coat of bright red or blue paint here would do wonders. Its a one-day job, and minimal cost, but would really boost this little corner with some brightness.
There is seating just out of frame.
Next we'll look at the senior equipment:
This doesn't look bad, a bit long in the tooth, you can see its already been patched by looking at the different wood tones and grains. The senior swing set is just in behind this.
Hmm, unpainted again........the people who installed these swings became developers later in life and continue to try to suck all the colour out of our city. LOL
Hold on, lets have a closer look at that swing set:
Ummm, that downward bend in the middle on the left doesn't look good. Its actually between two swings, I'm not even sure how you cause that, its an odd bit of metal fatigue. Time for new swings.
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Moving along, lets take one last look at the playground before moving northwards:
So this is the most northerly 'formal' entrance to the park. (its actually in the middle of the park) There is a sign, you can see seating and the playground.......ya know, sometimes you can technically check the boxes, but miss the spirit of the thing.
A narrow, limestone screened path, no landscaping to speak of, the seats are all turned away from the street......meh.
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Finally, lets look north from the playground:
This space occupies just over 1/2 of the land area of the park. There is no path; during my brief spell here, late on a Friday afternoon, the majority of the park's users were dog owners, who were running their dogs here.
I stopped and chatted them up, and asked if they would like a DOLA (Dogs Off Leash Area); the answer was essentially 'no', because they had asked the City about that, and the City wanted to fence off only the northern quarter of the open space, and remove the grass..
I get why the City would remove the grass; I'm not sure why any DOLA would need to be so small, providing the area was fine w/it. If that's whose using the space.
The only amenity here is a picnic table out of picture.
One last picture, and you'll see why in my follow-up post on what I would suggest for this space: (looking southwards along the abutting street)
To wrap this post up, its not a terrible space, in all it had 7 people in it during my brief stay, two twenty somethings tanning on the rail embankment, two couples out w/their dogs and one elderly woman just sitting on the bench in the shade.
That said, the space underwhelms visually, isn't particularly inviting, despite being small, seems to waste space and some of the features, such as they are, a past their best before date.
In the next post, I'll discuss what could be done here cheaply, or with a bit more money.
