The (arrogant) assertion by Adrian Benepe, NYC parks commissioner and narrator of the NYT slideshow referenced below, that New York City is the 'birthplace of the playground'--based upon the opening of Seward Park in 1903--is plainly incorrect.
I'm not an expert in playground history, but I do know that Jane Addams established the Hull House playground in Chicago in 1895, opening it to a 'wild scene of delight' in which boys tunneled under the fences to get to be the first on the swings, as the original piece from this newspaper attests. [easier to read at its transcription here]
This slide show depicts the "evolution of recreational space in and around Hull-House, from alleys and courtyards to playgrounds that were eventually taken over by the municipality" in 1906, and is the source of the 1901 photo above. Hull House beats not-the-center-of-the-universe-NYC by a healthy eight years.
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