Funtopia Elizabethtown: An Amazing Playground, Built on Pride
If you’ve got kids of the sandbox-playing, ladder-climbing, monkey-bar-swinging ages, take them to Funtopia Elizabethtown, the 12,500-square-foot recreational area built with community spirit and neighborhood pride in 2002. Over a five-day period, community supporters put together the $150,000 Funtopia Elizabethtown play land at 801 N. Miles St. that would be a point of pride for any city. The 2002 fourth-grade class at Morningside Elementary School came up with the name of Funtopia.
Active youngsters will burn off plenty of energy swinging hand-over-hand across monkey bars, climbing up and down the wooden jungle gym, crawling through tunnels, slipping down tubular slides, racing across a suspended bridge, frolicking with comical pigs, pink elephants and a teeter-totter alligator, and more. There’s a full-sized swing set for bigger kids in the main area, which is geared for ages 5 to 12 years old. A smaller swing is available in the Tot Lot, an area set aside for children 2 to 5 years old. The small fry can pretend-pilot a boat-shaped structure, ride the slide and crawl through a plastic tunnel into a steeple-topped playhouse. There’s even a playhouse version of the Back Home Restaurant, a popular Elizabethtown eatery!
Everything in Funtopia is colorful, fanciful and — well — fun! The grounds are cushioned with soft chips to keep playtime as safe as possible. Located inside American Legion Park, the playground is a stone’s throw from a public swimming pool, a nine-hole par-3 golf course and picnic shelter.
Youngsters in the Tot Lot will be amazed at an almost-magical voice conduit. Speak softly into a hole in one part of a wooden play set and the words will come out of a matching hold on a separate structure yards away. How does it work? We couldn’t figure it out.
Funtopia is open from 8 a.m. till dark Monday through Saturday, and from 11 a.m. until dark on Sunday. Best of all, it’s free.
Posted on Feb 3, 2011 by Bill Wolfe
