Tuckahoe Park
2400 N. Sycamore St.Arlington, VA 22213
Website ~ Map Link
Bottom Line: An older park with very unusual play features. Better suited to elementary-aged children than toddlers. 3/5 stars.
The Review:
The park was renovated Fall 2013 and this review is out-of-date.
Please check out my new review of Tuckahoe’s Renovated Playground.
This park is … um, how shall I put it? Weird. It is different from any other I’ve encountered in Arlington and it looks like it was an industrial arts recycling project. It features two large play structures that are made out of old school materials, along with a few newer features including swings, spinners, and bouncers.
The park sits back from Sycamore Street a little bit, down a paved path. It is adjacent to Tuckahoe Elementary School, but not part of the school property. The first time I visited, school was out and the park was empty and it felt a little too secluded to me. I’ve been back a couple of times since and have always seen others park goers and not had that same sense of unease.
The first play structure looks like a giant watch tower/play fort. Kids climb the circular stairs up to the top, which is enclosed in a metal mesh. It’s not very fancy by new playground standards but leaves a lot open to the imagination of kids.
The other main structure has a long walkway with yellow fencing that leads up to an observation platform with an enclosed tube slide. This structure also strikes me as bizarre, but kids seems to have a blast running through it, playing at the top and going down the slide.
Other park features include:
2 regular swings and 2 bucket (baby) swings:
3 abstract people-looking climbers:
A fun bouncing pad, two spinners, and two new-fangled teeter-totters:
Aside from the two baby swings, there’s not much to recommend the park to caregivers of little kids. The mulched play area is surrounded by a paved path which makes it decent for bikes and trikes, but it does have a bit of a downward slope at one end.
At the lower end of the playground, an unpaved path leads through the woods. It wouldn’t be good for ride-on toys or plastic wheels, but was okay for my jog stroller. At the upper end of the playground there is an open field, but you have to climb a small hill to get to it — you couldn’t keep an eye on kids on the field and playground at the same time.
Overall, this is an okay playground for older kids, but it does get hot and sunny by mid-day. It’s a nice change of pace if you’re looking for something different but I can’t say it’s one of my top picks.
Find more parks by visiting my main Arlington Parks & Playgrounds page.
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It is really unfortunate to see that this playground has been destroyed. This was always my favorite playground as a child, lots of fond memories here. I particularly loved to climb on the fencing inside the smaller tower.The tower also used to have a massive slide that snaked around it that was taken out years earlier.
It saddens me to see that people failed to see architectural value in this park. I haven’t and don’t think I ever will see anything like it. A great example of deconstructive modernism. Its use of odd angels that play with perspective, a cantilever hut, and industrial materials like chain link was pretty inventive.
I so agree with you about how awful it is that they tore all of it down. I went to Tuckahoe Elementary school from 1998-2000 back when there was still the wrap around slide on the big tower and the black and white slide on the tower with the slanted roof. I also lived on Underwood street a block away and continued to go that park while on middle school. The only other playground I have ever enjoyed as much as that one was the wooden one that used to be at Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach. Everyone loved that playground and I remember when we were at recess a bunch of us kids would all get in the wrap around slide at the same time and hang out in it. They also built the amphitheater nearby while I was still going to school at Tuckahoe. It’s a real shame they tore it down.
I loved the old playground, too. It was very unusual, which is what made it fun. My kids went to Tuckahoe ES from 2008-2014, so they got to experience the old and the new. They like the new swing, too. What I heard a lot from them just after the new playground was build was that the artificial turf was very hot and full of static. Hope they’ve fixed the static problem.
Does anyone have any pictures of this park when it was called “Log City”?
I would love to see some photos of that, google turned up nothing
I was just reminiscing about log city. It would be awesome if someone could share a photo of it. My wife doesn’t believe how awesome it was.