Forest Park, Variety Wonderland Playground Ranked Among Best in United States

The sun rises beyond Post-Dispatch Lake, with World’s Fair Pavilion and Government Hill to the right, and the Central West End skyline off in the distance.

It’s enjoyed by over 15.5 million visitors each year, who hail from over 100 countries and span every age and background. They come for the outdoor recreation, to experience restored natural habitats and world-class cultural institutions. It is, of course, the one and only Forest Park, widely recognized among the best urban parks in the United States.

Forest Park is over 1,300 acres of joy and wonder, delighting St. Louisans and attracting tourists from around the world to glimpse some of the best St. Louis has to offer.

The accessible Variety Wonderland Playground teems with activity throughout the day.

In the latest USA TODAY 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards, Forest Park again finished on the podium, at #3, voted as one of the top city parks for the fifth consecutive year. New in this year’s poll, which ran from March 10 to April 7, one of Forest Park’s playgrounds was also ranked among the best in the country. Variety Wonderland Playground, a fully accessible playground adjacent to the Dennis & Judith Jones Visitor and Education Center where many visitors begin their Forest Park journey, finished #4 in voting for that category.

But the treasure of Forest Park is all the many things people can do: from the free museums, zoos and outdoor theater to the recently extended 2.5-mile waterway; from 30 miles of paths and trails to the dozens of sports fields, courts and golf courses that get people outside and bring them together; from the more than 190 acres of Nature Reserve to the fountains, flowers and lakes that provide the backdrop to so many cherished moments.

All of these are possible thanks to an innovative public-private partnership through which private St. Louisans and public City officials and employees worked over the past 39 years to restore Forest Park and make it an ideal attraction — a partnership that has been renewed for 20 to 30 years more.

Originally famed for hosting the 1904 World’s Fair and the Olympics, Forest Park had fallen into decline by the 1970s and ‘80s. That’s when Forest Park Forever, a private nonprofit conservancy founded in 1986, was formed to help bring the Park back.

Today it is known not just for the iconic spaces that this innovative partnership restored, but also for the thoughtful new amenities that make the Park more welcoming and inclusive to today’s visitors. Spaces like the Variety Wonderland Playground, the 17-acre Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape, the Nicholas J. Booker Basketball Courts, the 190-acre Nature Reserve and the Taylor Kindle River each broadened what was possible for millions of visitors each year. And the East Waterways project completes a vision for a linear, connected waterway meandering from west to east in the Park.

The next project on the horizon will be another transformative step forward for the Park and indeed for all of St. Louis: The 22.5-acre Glade, which includes historic Steinberg Rink, will create a world-class, year-round community destination in the Park’s under-utilized eastern end. It will bring visitors from the City’s busy Central West End and from across the region to enjoy Forest Park’s unique mixture of nature, recreation, dining and culture.

It’s all part of continuing Forest Park as a great place for St. Louis, and for the whole world to see.