Buddy Carruth Playground

These playgrounds are extensive and once quite beautiful, but must be regarded as unusable due to sanitation concerns. They are used as open-​air latrines by the local resident homeless population that are attracted to the adjacent Palmer Church homeless waystation across the street.
Here was our experience: I have regularly taken my daughter to these playgrounds since we moved to the area. Last Sunday, I took my daughter to play on the northernmost (blue) playground on the West side of Hermann Park. It is normally the most crowded with children and the furthest from the resident homeless populations in the picnic shelters a bit south. About a minute after she started to play, as she was scooting down some of the stairs on her bottom, I noticed that her bottom and shoes had gotten very, very dirty, and her hands were covered in what appeared to be mud. It took me a few moments to realize that someone had defecated on the steps of the playset and that she’d slipped and fallen in human feces. This set off some frenzied crisis cleaning, to say the least.
I managed to find some park workers to report the incident to and they were very friendly, helpful, and responsive, but this is actually the second time I’ve seen human waste at that playground (I wrote the first off to a fluke, and it was not so… prominently placed). The workers mentioned that this had actually happened more often than the times I’d noticed.
Apparently, the facilities cost $ 1.3 million to build back in 1995. Such a pity that the city has allowed them to fall through the cracks.
If you need a playground in the area, the only real option is to buy a zoo membership and use the one inside the Children’s Zoo.