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Home of the Kenwood Park Water Tower; Kenwood’s family friendly amenities include a playground and tot lot; walking paths; space to picnic with a grill, drinking fountain, and restroom facility; and sports courts and fields. This is a fun park to explore it is hilly with lots of mature trees that create hidden gems throughout the park. This is the type of park that has enough interesting features that you can make a full day, but it is convenient enough to just drop by to play.

If you are going for the full day adventure, go beyond the park in your explorations to find Birchbark Books, ARTrageous Adventures and The Kenwood Restaurant (on the other side of the community center) as well as the water tower (across Kenwood Parkway from the park). While on the storefront side of the park, check out the school’s poetry water garden and pollinator plants. There are some large sculpture rocks that double as seating in that area, too.

Kenwood Park Playground

The playground and tot lot are ideal for visiting with mixed ages. The equipment for bigger kids and for smaller kids are separated by paths but all close enough together that parents can watch all their kids from almost any angle of the playground or even from the picnic and grilling area a few feet away. Big kids (and this mom) love the zip line while smaller kids get pretty excited by the train. Besides these favorites, there is a real metal slide, a climbing net, a surf board bouncy thing and other climbing structures as well as both tot and regular swings.

Kenwood School Playground

There is also a playground across the street at the school. While this appears less exciting after ziplining, it has some fun features too (including its own not-nearly-as-cool zipline), a climbing wall and a tube slide. The flooring is shredded rubber, so impacts from jumping and running are less stressful (important when you are playing along with your kids). The speaking tubes actually work on this playground. We have never found ones that worked before.

Kenwood Park Community Center

Kenwood Community Center is air-conditioned. It has a community kitchen, a craft room, a gym and meeting/multipurpose rooms. This is one of several Minneapolis parks with a little free library. There is even a turtle that lives there. The building was rehabbed during the summer of 2018. Most of the updates were related to updating components or meeting accessibility standards.

Birthday Parties at Kenwood Park

The community center is available for rental for birthday parties and other private events.

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Other Parks Near Kenwood Park

The nice thing about living in Minneapolis is that there are parks everywhere. If you are considering a personal park crawl, these parks are close to Kenwood and could be visited together in an afternoon.

• Bryant Square to the southeast of Kenwood has a recreation center and a pool.
• Lyndale Farmstead to the south of Kenwood has a small recreation center.
• Linden Hills also to the south of Kenwood has a recreation center and a pool.
• Whittier to the east of Kennwood has a recreation center and pool.