Washington Park / JJ Byrne Playground

Good swings for tots and bigger. Nice tot lot, great climbers for bigger. Fields get crowded with soccer and playground MS 51 recess so plan well. Check out the skate park and the handball courts too.

This is one of NYC’s «destination» playgrounds. One that stands above the rest. Interesting water feature, great separation between early years, toddler and big kid areas. Lots of swings, great equipment, cool educational features, large astroturf field and located near lots of cafes and restaurants. I hail from Astoria and my family likes exploring new parks and this one was on the list. Glad we visited. Lots of fun. Very busy of course, but hey, you can say that about any real destination in this little town.

Pretty expansive spot with benches convenient for consuming maple creemees.

Nice park. Good location.

An awesome park for those with small kids. Plenty of activities. They have slides for toddlers and swing set for bigger kids. They also have a water feature in the middle of the park for this hot days. Plenty of seating areas for mom and dads to sit and cool off while their little ones run around. On Saturday mornings, to sit and read the paper, drink ice cold coffee and eat freshly baked bagels and watch your kids have a blast, what else can you ask for. There are plenty of restaurants and delis around the park. You can literally spend the entire day here. It has something for the young and the old.

Washington Park has a really diverse amount of offerings for kids and adults, mostly compartmentalized into a series of courts– tennis, basketball, and a skateboarding area. My boyfriend and I really only visit to use the skate park, which offers a fairly large open area with a launch box/​pyramid in the center, some grind boxes, etc. Nothing complex but, people seem to have a good time there and bring in extra elements to make it more interesting. Its also a great spot that doesn’t get super crowded and has a good amount of flat space for real beginners-​like me.
The biggest downside of the skatepark portion is the number of small children who are either unsupervised or simply released onto the pyramid and other skate elements to dick around. Park Slope parents– that area is what you call a skatepark, it is for skateboarding (or I guess rollerblading? Do people still rollerblade?). Teach your child to ride a bike, razor scooter, or flop around on the ground like a fish at the millions of other open space options your neighborhood affords. The pyramid is not a jungle gym or a slide, please keep your kids safe and let everyone enjoy the park’s elements for their intended purposes.

My perspective on this park comes from two places: one over fifteen years ago, and the other in the present. Back before Park Slope’s major gentrification, this park was good. There were handball courts, fountains and wide open areas to play ball, but there wasn’t anything distinctive about it other than its relatively large size.
Nowadays however, the park has been worked over completely. There are new jungle gyms for kids to play in, areas you can reserve for parties, a garden managed by volunteers and a really large area for playing sports such as soccer. Every time I’ve been there recently, there are armies of kids having a grand old time with their parents. It’s alive and energetic.
On weekends, you’ll also find a green market off to the side of the park with vendors that sell everything from artisan cookies to some really delicious chocolate and wonderful produce. Definitely worth checking out.
My only complaint is not about the park, but rather some of the people who attend it. I went recently early on a Sunday morning. I was one of the first people there and staked out a small spot to do a workout. I was in the middle of my routine when all of a sudden this small army of guys starts setting up soccer nets and ropes to set up their «boundaries» (which was pointless because they basically took over the entire open area of the park). At first they avoided me, leaving a small space that I could work with. However, as they began to let their kids play, they just pushed the rope against my feet, forcing me out instead of asking me like a civilized human being. Beware these guys, they’re rude and tactless.
Other than that, I have no complaints about the park. It’s a lot better than it used to be and families seem to have a great time there.

I’ve been coming to this park my entire life! Yes I’m a native park sloper! I’ve seen it change many times, this recent renovation I believe it’s a little over two years old by now. It’s nice, clean, but I do think the rocks in the middle aren’t safe, seen MANY children get hurt already, who’s bright idea was it to have water & slippery rocks right near each other, in the middle of a park? Not the smartest idea…
The park is usually filled with nannies chatting with each other & barefoot toddlers running around. But hey this is the NEW Park Slope :-/​
Besides the usual nonsense where new Park Slope people try to look at the native Park Slope people as if we aren’t suppose to be there, I guess it’s a good park, in the summer they have activities for the kids, music, play blocks, sometimes they have a little fair in the front with pizza, hot dogs etc.

I like to come to this dog run sometimes because I like to walk around the nabe. There’s a lot happening! Lots of kids in the playground, teenagers playing handball and soccer players. If you go on a weekday there’s the middle schoolers. If you go on sunday, there’s the farmer’s market. So if your dog doesn’t like crowds, don’t come here!
The location of this dog run is a plus but it is hard to find. It’s across from the soccer field and next to the handball courts.
Now to the dog run itself: it’s a decent sized run but it’s separated down the middle so there’s two narrow spaces for the dogs to run. They make a sharp turn to go from one side to the other through a fence door that stays open most of the time. There’s running water when it’s warm. There’s two benches. The floor is made up of gravel. Over time, the gravel has moved around a lot. Some spots have no gravel. It gets really dusty in here!
There are large and small dogs that come here, especially on weekends. Gets busy!

This park got renovated a while ago and is now a big hub of activity every day. I come here primarily for the dog park (go behind the school and past the handball courts, entrance is off the path that divides the apartment building from the big turf field). The dog park is nice because it has that water fountain and a holding area fenced off separately from the main area. The main dog park has a fence running through the middle, nominally to separate large dogs and small dogs but the gate in between is always open and dogs freely mix from one to the other.
I find it to be a little bit of a bummer that all the different audiences for the park are so on top of one another. The guys playing handball get really competitive and scream and curse all the time, which must be a real bother to all the families with small children that come to play on the play structure, who in turn run up and harass the dogs going to/​from the dog run that may or may not be friendly to children. It is a nice park though, just too full all the time.

Best park in the Slope! A variety of areas for kids to play in and around!

What a sweet playground. If I were 7 years old, I would be running this place. Great spot, tons of kids, and is right next to a dead end street thus keeping the traffic to a mnimum

I’m not so excited about the renovations here. Although the stones around the sprinklers look lovely (and bring some natural elements to the park)…it’s unsafe for many children as they are running around. Also, I find that there isn’t much more for my 2 year old… the baby and toddler sections aren’t very interesting/​challenging for him and the big kid part is too big. I prefer heading up to 3^rd St playground in the Park, or Berkley/​Lincoln at PS282.

Dog run. Skate park. 5 full court basketball areas. 8 handball courts. A soccer/​baseball/​picnic field. Newly built playground. Beautifully maintained space by the Old Stone House (supposedly the oldest building in Brooklyn) peeps.
You can be mesmerized just sitting here.
I ran into a friend on the way home as she was playing handball with a lot of awesome guys and gals. I sat for a while on the sidelines. Great plays. Some taken seriously. Fun. Balls whizzing by. My bones literally ache just watching and yearning to be a part of the action.
And if that doesn’t move you, perhaps your child playing in the water would. The cool breeze on a Summer day. The beautiful gardens.

The new playground opened last week and this design is the final jewel for the park. The playground is now a beautiful garden where there was once only a sea of asphalt. Lush planting, natural stone make this a nice place for me to hang when it’s warm, and the a kick-​but spray shower made this my daughters new favorite spot. I can’t wait to play here again this summer. Plus the frozen yogurt across the street is a delish snack.

Ugh. The dog park here sucks.
Brought my playful well behaved pup and was given the side eye from the moment we walked in. Like this was some sort of elite social club or something. Then, when two other dogs outright attacked my dog (while my boy just laid down and submitted), the owners did NOTHING to stop their dogs.
When we tried to get our dog back on leash and out of the park, the aggressors followed us and kept attacking. Still, the owners did nothing but stare through their Gucci sunglasses.
Not the place for me. Way too uppity and cold for me AND my dog.

Came here to play basketball the other day. There’s at least 3 full courts. Some of the rims are a bit busted, and no nets. But, hey, no complaining about free outdoor courts!

Nice park plopped right down in the middle of Park Slope. It is not nearly as impressive as its richer, cooler and more popular older brother Prospect, but it is still nice to have.
Kids can play with such things as a giant sandbox and a big slide. Adults can sit back and read a book or chat with friends on a lazy afternoon. But most of the parents are just pushing around the latest Bugaboo strollers and yapping on their cell phones.
You are a few feet from some of the best dining options in Park Slope, which includes AOC bistro, Moutarde and the extremely popular Al Di La Trattoria.
But if you do not want to dine out, then stroll on over to Ozzie’s coffee, get a hot or cold drink, some muffins or a bagel, and then hang out in one of the many green areas of Brooklyn.

Hooray for the farmer’s market here on Sundays! Also, the water fountain/​sprinkler for the kids in the summertime is mighty cute. The drinking fountains get packed with both kids and parents filling up water balloons too. The epitome of Park Slope family time.

This spot gets so crowded as soon as school lets out. It’s also the unofficial neighborhood rest area for all the stroller warriors out there in Park Slope; the playground is geared towards the younger set with a fun sandbox and a neat slide.
The park is also the home to the Old Stone House, billed as a historic interpretive center with interesting exhibits about Brooklyn’s role in the Revolutionary War and old Dutch influences in the area. It itself is a reconstruction of a 1699 Dutch historic farmhouse.
More for the kids and the after-​school crowd, it’s not a bad place if you find yourself not wanting to go uphill for three blocks to go to Prospect. It’s also surrounded by a few neat businesses and is a stone’s throw from the busier end of 5^th Avenue.