Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Where Is It? Answer
The bronze Roundbottom Hippopotamus emerges from the sidewalk at the entrance of Little Rock’s new playground for preschoolers: Margaret Clark Adventure Park.
Opened Sept. 22, the park offers an unusual assortment of structures for climbing, crawling, swinging, making music, balancing, playing house, splashing and performing.
Little Rock Parks and Recreation crews designed and built it on a strip of land between the Arkansas River and LaHarpe Boulevard, just west of the Little Rock Marriott Hotel Conference Center and east of the Broadway Bridge.
With its three sculptures,
the playground could be mistaken for an extension of the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden and Jack Fleischauer Garden. Near the hippo, which sculptor Tim Cherry designed as a low bench, twin sheep Bliss and Glee by Giuseppe Palumbo vogue atop stone pedestals.
The area contains a kidsize slat house, balance beams, rock tunnels, weather-hardy musical instruments, a rope teepee-go-round, low slides, an amphitheater-style stage where children (or anyone) can sing or act, swing sets, a splash pad.
Two big depressions in this performance area formerly used during Riverfest are coated with green and blue poured rubber so little knees aren’t scraped while they scramble through stone tunnels. But it would be kind to crawl through the tunnels with little ones the first time, teaching them to look up before they try to emerge. That could allow adults to avoid the eardrum damage inflicted by a shocked 4-year-old’s four-octave reaction to a bump on the noggin.
Nearby tables and chairs allow for family picnics.
The play area is named for Margaret Clark, a longtime supporter of Riverfront Park and public sculpture. To the east, the William E. “Bill” Clark Presidential Wetlands is named for her late husband. Isabel and John Ed Anthony contributed money for the hippo, and members of the Junior League of Little Rock and Friends of Riverfest Inc. helped buy the sheep.