PLAY IS THE THING: Susan G. Solomon and Richard P. Borkowski at the Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse in East Fairmount Park.

Solomon, a University of Pennsylvania-educated art historian, 20th-century architecture buff and author of American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space (University Press of New Eng- land), feels the the power of play and the rewards of risk are at least as important as safety.

Borkowski, author of 2005's Coaching for Safety: A Risk Management Handbook for High School Coaches (ESD112) and retired athletic director at Episcopal Academy, who for decades has doubled as a risk-management and playground consultant, says safety is first and foremost.

Solomon is more of a play theorist who says playgrounds have become too sterile because of an excessive concern with safety.

Meanwhile, Borkowski, who serves as an expert witness for plaintiffs and defendants alike, is a practical realist. It's a classic case of a cautious and conservative former administrator (Borkowski) versus a free-spirited adventurist (Solomon).

At issue: Should we be protecting kids from themselves, or by doing so are we stunting their growth?

Growing up a Jersey girl, Solomon says she was the "one who always got dumped," or fell off the equipment on the playground. "As a result, I found out that good kids can fail—and I think I became a more tolerable kid because of it," she says. "Kids need risk, and because of risk, their experiences become more meaningful."

Narberth's Borkowski reacts rather bluntly to Solomon's wisdom: "Her logic escapes me," he says before bringing the reality of playground safety full circle. "Thirty years ago, if you fell, you fell, and there was no lawsuit."

Not so anymore.

Borkowski says amid the dozens of calls he fields each month, one inevitably involves a Philly playground accident. He recently finished working on one off Broad Street involving a Temple University-owned playground. "A child fell off a piece of equipment," he says. "I said he fell because he fell [and not because of the equipment], then both parties settled out of court like nine of every 10 do."

We touched base with Solomon and Borkowski on the occasion of National Playground Safety Week (April 24-28). The week—dedicated to focusing on children's play environments, to using good judgment when playing, and to expressing gratitude to those who maintain playgrounds— is sponsored by the National Program for Playground Safety at the University of Northern Iowa (www.playgroundsafety.org). In general, spring brings more frequent trips to the playground. Also, parks and other public facilities are preparing for the busy summer season.

"It's an excellent group," Borkowski says. "They're providing a major service of getting out the message, and answering questions like, 'What are good playgrounds?'"

Oh yeah?

"It's probably libelous to say, but they're so hell-bent on one issue [safety] that they don't see the bigger picture, so they're doing a tremendous harm," says Solomon.

Such organizations are altering a child's world—and a nation's future, she says. Playgrounds, Solomon says, resemble 2001's federal No Child Left Behind legislation: Everything is predetermined and regulated, which leaves little room for creativity and possibility thinking. She fears, for example, we may lose a generation of entrepreneurs. "To be one, you have to take risks," she says. Since she says modern playground equipment doesn't meet the needs of children (only safety-mongers), the country is "totally depleting kids' psychological development." There's even a rumor circulating, Solomon says, that kids don't get dirty anymore.

Borkowski, who pins the "safer is better" trend on the ever-increasing lack of self- and parent responsibility, says he's all for stimulating play environments, but says there's a middle ground: No playground can ever insure the safety of all children. "The only way we can prevent all playground injuries is to blow up all the playgrounds, and have kids sit in front of the TV and eat lots of food and feed the obesity statistics," he says.

Each year, 205,860 preschool and elementary children receive emergency department care for injuries that occur on playground equipment, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. From January 1990 to August 2000, CPSC received reports of 147 deaths to children younger than 15 that involved playground equipment. An alarming 70 percent of those deaths occurred on equipment at home.

The sticking points remain maintenance and upkeep, supervision, the installation of age-appropriate equipment and the use of proper materials to soften falls. Falls to the surface are a contributing factor in 79 percent of all injuries, CPSC reports.

While CPSC publishes general guidelines in its Handbook for Public Playground Safety, only California mandates playground safety inspections as certified by the National Playground Safety Institute (NPSI), an arm of the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA). For all other states, inspections are optional.

A sampling of banished equipment includes high slides, high-swing seesaws, monkey bars and self-propelled carousels. Even sand has been disappearing, unless it's elevated on an "antiseptic table," Solomon says. The gain, though, has been less-serious injuries, says Borkowski, who also maintains, "We've lost nothing in the battle. It's not even a battle; it's caring about kids."

Solomon (who, in the interest of full disclosure, is the mother of Jon Solomon, the host of this paper's local music podcast) remains president of her own Princeton, N.J.-based per-diem curatorial resources and research company. Since the release of her 2004 book she says she's increasingly interested in launching a clearinghouse for communities that want to build playgrounds that foster creativity. She says many think they have no choice but to build a "super-certified safe option."

"I want to spread the word that risk is important," she says.

Borkowski says he likes talking to schools or playground associations about lowering risk before there's a litigation. "Risk is important," he says, "but what we try to avoid is hazard."

He says there's a popular, challenging and safe playground 200 yards from his house, Narberth Playground's Kiddie City: "Knock on wood, I don't think there's ever been an issue," he says.

As for Solomon, she proudly presided over festivities last summer at the Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse in East Fairmount Park at the grand reopening of the restored and renamed century-old wooden Ann Newman Giant Slide, which allows more than one child, or adult, to slide down at once, land however, then figure out what to do next, "a fantastic delight," she says.

Next to it, in total juxtaposition, there's a giant seesaw made out of a telephone pole she calls a "huge log," and therefore an "insipid solution" for play. Solomon says it's "completely safe" because it's "immovable."

"It's colorful and looks engaging but doesn't provide any interesting activity," she says. "It's such a fraud. It might only move an inch, so kids can't rise in the air or fall to the ground."