Myrtle the Turtle

When I first knew my husband, many decades back (late 1970’s), he lived in a dump of an apartment that overlooked a dump of a playground. We’d sometimes sit on Jim’s dump of a back porch and watch the kids, completely unaware that they were in a dump of a playground, having fun. I can’t recall exactly what was there then, but I’m guessing it was some combo of dirt, cement and weeds, with a bench or two for any accompanying adults. There may have been a sandbox; I don’t think there were any swings or a slide even.

The kids, as I do recall, always seemed to be enjoying themselves. Back in the day, no one had great expectations of what a playground should be like.

In that, things were little changed from the playgrounds of my childhood, a couple of decades earlier.

The playgrounds of my childhood were mostly backyards, streets, and the nearby woods. But we did have some playgrounds, pretty much indistinguishable, one from the other, except for the fact that the playground in Bennet Field was at the back of a baseball field, and the tiny, weird little playground off of Apricot Street that had an old-timey wooden, sliver-giving Depression-era slide.

Playgrounds in the 1950’s typically featured a couple of bent swings and (the off-Apricot playground aside) a flesh-searing metal slide, a seesaw, a sandbox, a trash barrel, and some run around space. Maybe even a bubbler.

Anyway, the Myrtle Street playground wasn’t much of anything.

And then, like the other playgrounds in these parts, it was.

Interesting play structures were installed. The cement and dirt were replaced with those bouncy rubberized mats that wouldn’t hurt a kid who fell. There were plantings, flowers even. And toys for sharing – all sorts of big-wheelie things for toddlers. Trucks, pails, shovels. (Of course, now that there’s such a thing as bottled water, most of those bubblers are gone…)

But the Myrtle Street Playground wasn’t quite complete.

So the Beacon Hill Garden Club donated a bronze sculpture of Myrtle the Turtle, a double shout out to the Myrtle Street Playground and to the real (flesh and blood?) Myrtle the Turtle who lives at the New England Aquarium. The piece was the work of renowned sculptor Nancy Schon, who’s famous for her “Make Way for Ducklings” statues in the Boston Public Garden, and the tortoise and hare sculptures in Copley Square, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Very nice.

Except to the touch.

When Myrtle is out in the noonday sun, it gets plenty hot. And kiddos were getting burned.

When I first heard this, my initial thought was, that’s how kids toughen up. After all, how many times did I have to go down a flaming metal slide and get the backs of my legs and thighs burned to figure out you couldn’t slide down a flaming metal slide wearing shorts? Once, maybe?

But then I reconsidered. The Myrtle Street Playground is really built for toddlers, not big kids. And a nice shiny sculpture of a turtle is just bound to attract the little ones. Sure, the parents and nannies should keep watch, but I get that a two-year old could make a bee line for Myrtle. And isn’t the purpose of a small, gated park in the middle of a city to give kiddos a chance to go a bit free range?

You would think that there would be a solution to this problem. Like move Myrtle to a part of the park that’s always in the shade. Or take it out of the middle of things and rig some kind of canopy over it.

But, no.

Some Beacon Hill parents have gotten themselves up in arms and are demanding that the dangerous turtle be removed.

Someone even made a BFD out of it, calling 911 and getting the Boston Fire Department to show up. My hefty property taxes in action! Don’t know what BFD was supposed to do about this BFD. Hose Myrtle down?

Instead, the Parks Department ended up shrouding Myrtle in an Ikea-blue body bag, which will apparently stay in place while the powers that be over the parks decide whether to remedy the hazard or remove Myrtle entirely.

Meanwhile, Beacon Hill being Beacon Hill, this has become a “roiling controversy,” with an anonymous (of course!) campaign underway to have Myrtle removed as “dangerous.”

Some parents are sniffing because they weren’t consulted to begin with and claiming that “Myrtle was a huge mistake,” a “menace,” inappropriate for a “tiny urban playground.”

Sides have been taken. People are afraid to speak out, other than under cover of anonymity. Let the polarization begin!

Sculptor Nancy Schon, who is 90, is plenty upset about this.

“I have done nothing but cry about this,” said Schon, reached by phone Thursday. “I don’t want to hurt children. What I do is make kids happy, and I just feel so terrible that this has happened.” (Source: Boston Globe)

So she  put together a petition – which I signed, becoming Myrtle supporter #1400 – to find some way to save Myrtle.

I understand the concern about tiny tots getting fried, but every day when I walk into the Public Garden, I see parents plopping their little ones on one of the “Make Way for Ducklings” statues for an Instagram moment. They, too, are bronze, sun drenched, and shiny. I’ve yet to see a yelping kid. Is it a matter of surface? Myrtle is larger than the ducklings. Or is it a matter of parents being observant, more on the spot. The ducklings aren’t in a run-around playground, they’re in a stroll around park.

I hope they can figure out some way to save Myrtle. It belongs in the Myrtle Street Playground, which is a nice little play space.

All this said, I sure do miss the good old days when the Myrtle Street Playground was a dump, and no one would have complained about a statue of a turtle. More likely, someone would have ripped the sculpture off and sold it for scrap. Ah, the good old days…