Sign of the Times

By C.J. Hirschfield

You’d be amazed how many people don’t know Children’s Fairyland exists (or “still exists”). It’s not that we’re a secret, exactly, but our public façade has always been a bit … reserved. If you were driving past our Grand Avenue entrance in a hurry, you could easily miss us.

Well, no longer.

Last Friday, for the first time in Fairyland history – and just in time for our 68^th anniversary on Sept. 2 – we got an entrance sign that does us proud.

And it took only 10 years of planning and 15 months of groundwork.

A Kids' Paradise

By C.J. Hirschfield

Lakeside Park is a very special neighborhood that’s designed with our community’s kids in mind. There’s Children’s Fairyland, of course, a treasure for our youngest kids since 1950. There’s the Rotary Nature Center, which since 1953 has served as a citywide interpretive center for science and environmental education. 

Rotary Nature Center in Lakeside Park.

And there’s the delightful Junior Center of Art and Science, which moved to Lakeside Park in 1992 from Mosswood Park, where it had been located since 1954.

The Junior Center of Art and Science in Lakeside Park.

The Mystery of the Lakeside Dome

By C.J. Hirschfield

Last week I came across the script that was used when Fairyland’s train used to roll through Lakeside Park. “The Lakeside Lark is now leaving from the gates of Fairyland on our magic track. Please sit back and relax. We hope you enjoy the trip,” it began. And later: “If you look off to your right, the geodesic dome stands. It was completed in 1957, the first to be installed in the States.”

The geodesic dome in Lakeside Park.

  

The 36-by-28-foot dome still stands, adjacent to the Rotary Nature Center, although it is empty and sad-looking, and its purpose is unclear.  As I started to learn more about the imposing structure, I discovered that a number of other things about it are unclear as well. 

For example:

A Swarm Is Coming

Editor's note: This column was originally published in the Piedmont Post in January 2016.

By C.J. Hirschfield

Many times this fall and winter, I’d ask little kids walking around Fairyland if they wanted to see something really special. The answer was always yes, and their parents humored me. I directed their attention to a number of nondescript plants, and told them to try to find a caterpillar. Which they did.  Their eyes lit up, and their toddler selves were engaged and interested. (It helped that that the creatures are bright yellow.)

I told them that Fairyland had planted special plants to attract monarch butterflies. In fact, we are now a certified monarch way station; our dream is to create a winter nesting place for thousands of monarch butterflies.

And it now appears that our dream may become a reality.