Case in point. This past spring, Dallas opened it's 8th Sprayground in my neighborhood. I must commend city hall for such a simple and cost effective way to cool off in the summer. It's basically a playground consisting of a variety of child friendly fountains. Since the fountains are on timers and there is no need for a staff, it cost very little to run them.
I must admit that I probably wouldn't have known about the one in my neighborhood if it hadn't been built right behind my daughter's school. Sadly, none of the people on my block knew about the Sprayground. At a recent neighborhood birthday party for a 2 year old, not a single person had heard of the park, even though it had been open the entire summer and everybody had kids.
How can something this great fly so low under the radar?
I must also commend the city for it's effective graffiti control program. A few weeks ago, someone decided to spray paint the most ridiculously offensive statement across the Sprayground's pump house. I guess they misunderstood intention behind the word 'Sprayground'. Fortunately, for the younger set who couldn't comprehend the vulgarities, they also painted a rather graphic picture complete with giant body parts.
In a matter of days, the playground Picasso had his work erased. The official city website has a place to report graffiti problems. It took two minutes of my time to report the problem.
I just wanted to take a moment and point out that there a lot of good things that the City of Dallas accomplishes. Next time you're driving to Arlington to catch the Cowboys, slow down a bit. You might be missing something cool.
Locations of Spraygrounds http://www.dallasparks.org/Downloads/Spraygrounds.pdf
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