Clarendon Avenue Park

Clarendon Avenue Park is our second favorite park for our 1.25yr old. There’s a massive climbing structure with parts good for toddlers and parts better for older kids. It sits in a giant sand area with a ton of toys that live in the park (including some excellent truck/​car toys). The sand is in pretty good shape… not too gross, but not the cleanest either.
There’s also a large circular pavement area with a good number of tricycles, push-​cars, scooters, and other assorted vehicles for your kid (s) to push around. This area gets some good shade in the late afternoon, so it provides some nice respite on hot days.
My biggest complaint of the park is that not enough people use it. Capt. K (my son) and I are often the only ones there. I don’t know if this is due to the park abutting Mass Ave (so there is a lot of traffic going by) or if there just aren’t many families that live in the area. However, if you go on a weekday from 11am-​12pm, there are usually 3 – 4 daycares that converge on the park. But it can get a little too insane for Capt. K’s taste.
In short, if you can walk to this park, I would definitely add it to your playground repertoire, particularly as an afternoon spot. There are so many toys to play with, it’s easy to kill and hour or two there.