Apricot Street Playground is located on the corner of Merchant and Apricot Streets near the Worcester-Leicester line just past Webster Square.

This is a really strange park. It’s located right across the street from Sullivan Middle School and Parson’s Cider Mill, which is a publicly accessible green space made available by the Greater Worcester Land Trust. There are so many trees and so much green space in this area that I think this has worked against Apricot Street Playground, since much of the area suburban-residential properties with large yard areas.

The park features a small playground apparatus, a swing set, and a few picnic tables. It’s about a 2-acre park, most of which is covered by trees and undergrowth. The site does feature a very large paved area, but the paved area has no visible vehicle access points. The baseball-field-sized paved area is also completely surrounded by trees, making it a somewhat unusual and secluded vantage point.

Apricot Street playground was transferred from the Water Department, becoming a city park in 1940. There is still a water pumping station located on the Apricot-Merchant Street corner, which seems to be in use.

In 1977, residents of the neighborhood asked to discontinue operation of the park because of problems with vandalism and crime there. Henceforth, the park was effectively abandoned and used as a dumping area.

Fast forward to 2016, the playground area is in better shape than others in the city (Cookson Field, Hadwen Park, Oakland Heights Playground) and the park was both surprisingly and impressively clean. I didn’t notice any trash. What happened in-between its dark age in the 70s and now? We’d like to know.