There’s a little playground very much off the beaten path in Toronto’s Corktown neighbourhood: Bright Street Playground. Yes, it’s on Bright Street. You may ask, ‘Where is Bright Street?’ It’s short north-south street that runs between King Street East and Queen Street East (just west of Sumach Street) that is full of cute houses that sit right up to the edge of the street. Almost where Bright Street meets Queen Street East, sits the fairly quiet Bright Street Playground.
The playground if fairly modern – with a ship theme. Accompanying the ‘ship’ is a small ‘sandbox’ (where kids tend to leave their toys for others to play with) and a teeter-totter. The surface is entirely the rubberized surface that you see in many modern playgrounds in Toronto. The pictures in the post were taken in mid-October (hence the leaves on the ground – expect a cleaner surface in the summer months).
The ‘ship’ features a slide, a rope ladder, places to sit, steering wheels and other little features for kids to interact with.
Yes, there’s a bench for caregivers – as well as a row of large rocks across the north and east side to sit on.
While geared towards younger children, our little-one at 5 years of age still spent plenty of enjoyable time here without a problem.
If you’re looking for a quieter experience for your little one, you should give Bright Street Playground a try. Almost every time we were there, we were the only ones. It’s only a 5 minute walk from the more popular Sackville Playground on King Street East.
There are no public washroom options nearby that this dad is aware of, but we usually would pop into Henrietta Lane (map) for a cookie and a pint when the need arose (it’s a 5-ish minute walk away). Another nearby option is Dominion Pub and Kitchen on Queen East at Sumach (a super short 1 minute walk – if that). [edit: sorry, it closed in 2023]
Have you been to Bright Street Playground before? If so, let us know what you think of this playground by commenting below.