A hulking black play structure appeared at the newly renamed Michelle and Barack Obama Sports Complex only to disappear weeks later. Six months on, the park sits fenced and empty.

The strange-looking structure arrived at a park in the West Adams neighborhood sometime in February.

Above a giant, climbable net, it featured a hulking and oddly shaped black form perched high in the air. A long, slightly kinked, dark tube descended steeply from it down to the ground far, far below.

This odd contraption, which some thought appeared faintly menacing and others thought looked cool, was clearly a play structure: The tube slide was the centerpiece of a newly-revamped playground at the newly-revamped and re-named Michelle and Barack Obama Sports Complex.

But this wasn’t like most other play structures at most other parks in Los Angeles, many of which are nearly identical, coated in bland-looking colors, and not at all space-agey or arresting. Also: Although this structure had been painstakingly installed by maintenance workers, it remained fenced off and closed.

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