Cincinnati Parks has released new designs for a replacement playground at Sawyer Point. The plans will pay tribute to a local immigrant.
Cincinnati Parks Director Jason Barron says the replacement playground at Sawyer Point will feature a European wall lizard, like those introduced to the area by a 10-year-old boy.
“George Rau in 1951 came back from his family’s vacation in northern Italy with a bunch of lizards in his sock, and released them into his backyard,” he says. “And now all these years later, the lizard has found a home here. It has become iconic Cincinnati.”
The Lizard and Sock Playground will be built next to the Sawyer Point sand volleyball court, east of the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge.
That’s near where the 1000 Hands Playground stood. It was destroyed by arson in November, 2024. The fire burned hot enough to melt the steel beams of the I-471 bridge.
The Lizard and Sock will feature a 10-foot tall climbing structure that looks like a lizard with a sock draped over it.
“All of it will be fully climbable. There’ll be tunnels and also an accessible pathway,” Barron says. “As a companion piece there is the spilled ice cream cone that is splatted to the ground. So there’s the mounds of spilled ice cream with a giant cone extending out of it that will be 36-foot high with a 20-foot tube slide that comes off the side of it.”
Barron says the layout of the playground is meant to look like young Rau dropped his sock with the lizard, which escaped, and then he dropped his ice cream cone. “And then George and all of his friends are shrunk down to play among the chaos.”
Other features will include replicas of 1951 coins and and a swing attached to a giant slingshot.
Barron says the playground will be custom-built by Midstates Recreation from Columbus and a Canadian firm.
“Earthscapes specializes in these hand-crafted custom, unique playgrounds. All wood and metal-built structures for the most part,” he says. “They have playgrounds across the country that they’ve built. Each one of them is a unique, one-of-a-kind piece of art.”
This is not the first set of plans for the replacement playground. Renderings released in December, 2025, featured steamboat and flying pig themes.
“So those were natural things to go to, but we’ve also done those a lot,” Barron says. “One of the other things that popped up was unique Cincinnati animals, and so we went back to the designers. They came back with a bunch of different concepts. The one that people almost universally gravitated to was the Lizard and the Sock.”
Barron says the 1000 Hands Playground was known for its accessibility, and the new one will be just as accessible.
“There are two different ADA slide elements. There are transfer benches that allow kids to access the climbing structures. There’s even a tunnel that a mobility device can go into that allows all kids to play together.”
He says it was important to replace 1000 Hands with another playground. “If we were to take a poll of all the kids that come to Sawyer Point… a 1000% of those kids would say we need to have an awesome playground.”
Barron says the project is expected to cost about $2.1 million, covered by city funds and donations. He says the goal is to have it open by Spring, 2028.
Read more:
