Why on earth did you put a playground on top of a cemetery?
You know, we hear that a lot. And the answer will surprise you. When you’re thinking about building a playground for kids, your first inclination might be “let’s not build this on a 200-year old cemetery.” But in our case, we thought differently.
What the hell were you thinking when you decided to build a playground on top of a cemetery?
Good question. When we designed our playground we knew it would have all the normal accoutrements of any children’s play space: slides, play houses, a sandbox and toys. But we wanted to offer something most playgrounds don’t offer: a chance for kids to come face-to-face with the prospect of mortality while they’re playing with sand.
What thought process goes into building a children’s playground on top of a cemetery?
It’s not as easy as you would think. When you’re building a playground on a normal piece of land that doesn’t have dead bodies in it you don’t have any obstacles in your way. In our case though, we were building a playground on top of a very old cemetery. We didn’t want to remove the grave stones because we felt it was important to respect the graves we were putting a playground on top of. So we built around them.
Do you realize you built a children’s playground on top of a cemetery?
Oh lord yes! We have lots of people remind us of that. And there are numerous instances when people visiting Rhinebeck see the playground and decide to let the kids out of the car for a stretch. We like to watch the faces of the parents because you can see the very moment they realize that we built a playground on top of a cemetery. You can almost read their minds.
Brian Sack
I started Banterist in 2003 after this conversation with my cat. It led to all sorts of good things.
Right. Remind me to be cremated.
My only hope is that my ashes aren’t put, along with everyone else’s, directly into the sandbox.
Oh but Brad, imagine the wondrous creature that might emerge when someday, some unsuspecting dolt driving by with a lorry-load of loosely-tied vats of radioactive material takes the curve too quickly, thereby sending one cracked crock into said sand/cremains-box! I can smell it now …
Brian, is that your son in picture 2? I’m wondering what your next attempt at filling his head with grim thoughts will be. Oh well, you probably are a better parent than I would be.
I’m not an accredited expert in building things on old graveyards but from my extensive knowledge of movies I understand it’s pretty safe unless it was an Native American burial ground or a pet semetary (sic, I know).
Were these pictures taken at the local Mafia-run playground?
Have we learned nothing from Poltergeist?
Catch the Moon
Nine year Cornelia liked to swing, especially at night when the man in the moon played hide-and-seek with her through the treetops. Up and down, back and forth, there he was and then he wasn’t.
The small play yard had been nestled in a corner of the cemetery for about a month. It seemed to be an arrangement that upset neither the children nor the parishioners planted there. As in all such situations, however, there was the requisite outcry from the self-appointed guardians of the changeless. It was hard to tell whom, beyond Intransigence, they were championing, as any argument they raised was as thin as the high pitched whine of a child or as transparent as a ghost.