About Long Meadow Park
While Long Meadow Park offers a vibrant playground with slides and monkey bars, a picturesque natural stream for rock play, a community pool with a water slide, and baseball fields, its suitability for children is severely impacted by significant safety concerns. The presence of loitering adults, individuals smoking (cigs/pot) and drinking, and homeless encampments throughout the general park area makes it largely unsuitable for family playground visits. The community pool and baseball fields appear to be separate, more suitable options for children within the larger park complex.
What parents should know
Summarized from real visitor reviews.
Best for: Supervised visits to the community pool for swimming and water slide use.Attending or participating in organized youth baseball games.Parents seeking local pride (as per one outlier review) rather than a direct family activity for young children.The playground structure (slides, monkey bars) would typically appeal to active children, perhaps 5-12 years, but the severe safety concerns make it unsuitable.The natural stream provides an engaging play area for younger children (e.g., 2-8 years) interested in nature and rock play, but again, safety concerns override.
Why families love it
- Vibrant and colorful playground structure featuring a half dozen slides and numerous monkey bars, offering ample climbing opportunities.
- A unique and 'adorable' natural stream, likened to 'the Shire', where children (specifically mentioned one son) enjoy playing with rocks more than the playground.
- A community pool is available, which includes a water slide and is described as a 'great place for your kids to play'.
- Presence of baseball fields where 'young Durhamites' play, suggesting organized sports activities.
- Diverse playground equipment for active play.
- Unique natural stream environment for imaginative play.
Insider tips
- If considering a visit, **ONLY consider the community pool or organized baseball activities** and completely avoid the general playground and stream areas due to safety concerns.
- Do not expect a safe, unsupervised playground experience for children.
- Parents should be aware of and prepared for the presence of homeless individuals, substance use, and loitering adults if visiting any part of the park.
Good to know before you go
- Bringing children to the general playground structure or the stream area under any circumstances, due to consistent safety warnings.
- Expectations of a traditional, safe, family-friendly public park experience.
- Allowing children to play unsupervised anywhere within the park grounds.
- The general park area is explicitly described as 'not a kid safe playground' and parents are strongly advised to 'DO NOT take your kids here' due to safety issues.
- Consistent presence of adults without children 'standing around smoking cigs or pot' and drinking alcohol.
- Crowds
- The park consistently has a noticeable presence of adults without children, groups of men 'hanging around', and homeless individuals with tents, indicating a permanent presence of non-family crowds.
- Value
- No pricing information is available from the reviews for any of the facilities (playground, stream, pool, baseball fields).
- Safety
- Reviews explicitly state the park is 'not kid safe' and call for it to be 'policed', indicating a severe lack of official safety oversight, supervision, or measures in place for the general park areas.
What parents say
"Really fun playground structure, colorful and plenty of stuff to play on. A half dozen slides abs tons of monkey bars all around to climb on! The coolest part of this park though, is that it’s right next to an ADORABLE little stream that looks just like something straight outta the Shire from Lord of the Rings. My son enjoyed playing there with the rocks in the stream more than the playground. 😁👍 Only negative is this playground, like the two others we’ve visited here in Durham, are in the ghetto/projects/hood….and so there are always adults without kids standing around smoking cigs or pot, "
3 years ago
"We pulled up and there was a homeless person sitting on the bench drinking. Under the pavilion there were multiple homeless people and had their tent setup like they were living there. This park needs to be policed. DO NOT take your kids here."
a year ago
"A place to chill and hangout, but not for kids take them to one of the other parks. The adults have claimed this one and some of the things done there shouldn't be around children. The pool however is a great place for your kids to play but avoid the park."
3 years ago
Reviews sourced from public Google data.
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