Historic “adventure” playgrounds like this one in the Hamlet of Mendon are making a nostalgic comeback. Photo by Peter Carosa
Mendon Community Park is celebrating its 40th anniversary in May of this year. The park’s playground was built over a four-day period from May 15-18, 1986 by a couple hundred volunteers. The playground boasts the same iconic wooden castle design that defined the childhoods of Gen Xers and Millennials across all of America. Ask any of them and they will recall spending hours in these imaginative structures and will even look back at the sometimes-painful memories of splinters, wasps, and scorching metal slides with nostalgia.
Nationally-renowned playground architect Robert Leathers designed thousands of these playgrounds across the world, including the one in Mendon. He was even featured on PBS’ Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street. The Carnegie Foundation, in a study on early learning, recognized “The ‘Leathers’ playgrounds are one-of-a-kind, and are designed to stimulate a child’s imagination, muscle development, and motor skills.”
In recent years, these cedar forts have been disappearing and are being replaced with modern plastic alternatives.
But, the one in Mendon continues to stand. Thanks in part because it was designed with Mendon in mind. Leathers incorporated input from a few dozen Mendon children, which undoubtedly led to the tires for climbing, the stage/amphitheater, and the boat. Additionally, the rustic playground fits in perfectly with the rural character of Mendon.
The playground was built by a group called Mendon Community Park, Inc. The group leader, Rayno Niemi, wrote the following historical chronicle of the park’s inspiration, design, and construction. The article was originally published in the Mendon Foundation’s Spring 2001 Pathways Newsletter:
Msgr. Albert Schnacky, former Pastor of St. Catherine’s Church in 1984, planted the seed for a park for the hamlet. Msgr. Schnacky talked to some parishioners regarding the fact that the hamlet had no park for its children and parents to enjoy. The baseball fields had been donated by St. Catherine’s, and he generously offered additional land at St. Catherine’s to be used for the park.
At this same time, a number of towns and local churches were building creative playgrounds designed by Robert Leathers, an architect from Ithaca, NY. A core group of people, many of whom no longer live in the area, visited his local parks and talked with their coordinators.
A core group met with other groups that had recently built parks in Greece and Victor. The core group contacted Robert Leathers in 1985 and started raising about $4000 to pay for the design day. This first step was realized on July 11th, 1985 when Robert came to the Chancy Center. About 50 children came that day to design the park. They drew pictures of their park and talked with Leathers. Leathers used the children’s ideas and designed the park that we now have.
The price of the materials was about $30,000. The cost of the labor was $0, all donated by the members of the community. The core group expanded into a myriad of committees and started extensive fund raising efforts. We had a “Buy a Board” campaign, a phone-a-thon, a wine tasting and numerous other projects. Many local citizens donated generously. We contacted local businesses to donate their products to us at cost or below. Many businesses contributed to this effort. Their names are on the plaques located on the kiosk in front of the park.
The entire community was saddened by the death of Msgr. Schnacky on January 22, 1986. His final wish was to have the community build the park and he requested that any donations be given for the construction of the park.
The gifts in his honor pushed the funding raising over the top.
The spring of 1986 was a beehive of activity. Groups of volunteers had located a vast array of materials, including high quality pressure treated lumber directly from a mill in North Carolina, telephone poles, nails, screws, and other items we never knew existed. Robert and his team insisted on quality materials — nothing less than the best would do. For example, we visited a dozen quarries to find the proper pea rock for the ground cover. We had to reject donations that did not consist of the right type of stone — the playground needed “rounds” rather than “sharps.”
We had the materials, but we worried about the volunteers. Would they come? To encourage people to work, we provided childcare and meals.
Two more committees needed to be formed. We asked people to sign up for a day, a half-day or whatever they could spare. And we crossed our fingers and prayed that the Monsignor would lend his support, yet again.
The two building foremen hired from Robert Leathers firm showed up on Wednesday, May 15 to start the process to drill the holes for the main supports of the structure. Only a few volunteers were needed that day since much of the work that needed to be done was accomplished with heavy machinery. The people who came that day, came back the next day and the next day.
The lists of volunteers swelled as the residents of Mendon saw the playground rise from the ground. In all over two hundred people worked on the park, many for more than one day, some from start to finish.
On Sunday, May 18th we dedicated the completed park in honor Msgr. Schnacky. Later a brass plaque was designed with a likeness of the Monsignor and his beloved German shepherd dog, Heidi, from a picture taken shortly before his death. The plaque is attached to a large rock near the base of the kiosk with the donation signs and has one of his favorite sayings:Plaque Dedicated to Monsignor Schnacky. Photo by Peter Carosa
“It’s not what I preach on Sunday What Counts is the way I live my life the other six days of the week.”
The park stands today as a commitment of the community to its children. It was a community effort that occurs far too infrequently.
I met many of my “now” best friends during the building of the park. I cherish the memories from that time. Now is the time to build new memories for the current residents of the Mendon area.
The original group, Mendon Community Park, Inc., slowly drifted apart as people moved away and/or their children aged out leading to the Mendon Foundation taking over maintenance of the park for a period in the early 2000s. In 2018, the Honeoye Falls Mendon Rotary Club led a project to restore the playground with McDaniel Brothers pressure washing and staining the cedar wood. Mendon Community Park is owned and maintained by St. Catherine of Siena Church.
Over the next forty years let’s hope the playground continues to unlock the imagination of Mendon’s children, foster risk assessment and spatial awareness skills, and give all of us a sense of community pride.
