New Civic Center Children's Playgrounds

The two childrens' playgrounds in Civic Center Plaza along Larkin Street have been fenced off for the last couple of months for major redesign, and a couple of weeks ago a fence appeared in the middle of the plaza on the long stretch of dirt.

Not that many years ago, there was a beautiful ornamental fountain that ran the entire stretch of the central plaza. This was eventually replaced by a lawn, which was torn out in 2008 for a "Victory Garden," a boneheaded collaboration between celebrity chef Alice Waters and then-Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Since 2008, the space has been a stretch of packed earth, but now it has a kid-friendly play space which was being used today by parents and their children waiting on a rainy morning for the Cherry Blossom Parade to begin.

It seems an odd site to place a playground since there are so many large gatherings in the plaza, from protest marches to parades to outdoor rallies, not to mention all the drug-addled street people who hang out in the neighborhood.

Still, it's a nice design and the little boys crawling around in the cubes under their father's watchful eye looked like they were having a blast.