TROWBRIDGE SQUARE
BURNHAM PARK NEIGHBORHOOD, MILWAUKEE
1530 S 38th Street
Trowbridge Square Children’s Play Area is located in a residential neighborhood in the northwest corner of Burnham Park, south of Silver City and east of West Milwaukee, not far from American Family Field and the shopping area on Brewers Boulevard. You’ll find the park on the corner of 38th Street and Branting Lane, where there’s plenty of street parking on either side of the road.
This playground, which is named after Nancy Elizabeth Trowbridge, was revitalized as part of the MKE Plays initiative and has a distinctive, naturescape styling to it. The fence surrounding the park has beautiful tile detailing decorating it, and the surface of the play area is primarily rubberized playground flooring, with grass around the edges and mulch surrounding the large trees at the center of the park. A sidewalk curves through the park from the 38th Street entrance to the entrance on Branting with decorative arches between tree posts serving as gateways.
Hills, valleys and slopes feature into the design of the green, blue and teal flooring, with rock stairways, stumps, logs, wooden bridges, and a huge slide built into the ground. Natural wood logs and trees are used as materials in most of the equipment, including a few wooden tables, chairs and benches. There’s a spinning seat and a rope climbing area on one side of the park, and a set of swings featuring two standard, flat-bottomed swings, a round web swing, an infant swing and an accessible swing.
The park is very well shaded by large trees at both the center of the park and around the edges. There’s a bike rack, a few benches, and trash cans near the gates, but no bathroom facilities or drinking fountains.
If you’re looking to park-hop, just a few blocks away you’ll find at playground at the corner of 36th & Rogers (which has one of my favorite random park features in the area - a listing of all 50 states in order of addition to the union with dates!) as well as the much larger Burnham Playfield on Burnham between 32nd and 35th which was in the process of being reconstructed in summer 2021 and should be open for play soon - with its new splash pad!
